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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   757 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 21, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Well, they might have taken it down recently - they seem to have taken down most of their longform policies recently, though I'm not sure I'm navigating their site correctly - but I was referring to this horror show of a policy they took to the last two(?) elections. Money quote:

CODE OF CONDUCT

The Greens will establish a code of conduct for Members of Parliament to ensure that they do not use their public office and parliament to condone far right extremism or normalise racism. It would bind Members to recognise the value and contribution of First Nations people, to recognise and value diversity and to reject discriminatory or exclusionary statements.

That policy would effectively ban One Nation (and Clive Palmer, who was slightly more of a thing when this was drawn up), because their party policies explicitly disagree with that requirement and as such they'd either have to abandon their platform or be ejected. This is presumably the intent. The moment I saw that, the Greens landed smack-bang at the bottom of my preference list (at least among notable parties).

(There's also a mention of mandating anti-racism training for MPs; it doesn't make clear whether they'd simply have to sit there and listen to it or whether they'd have to agree with it on an exam, though.)

Interesting, thanks. TBH I don't know how that could be constitutionally possible, Parliamentarians can say what they like with few limits, so what could a code of conduct do... But the intent is pretty clear, just like with many of their unworkable policies.

My quick research says that it should be Constitutional; Section 49 just states "The powers, privileges, and immunities of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and of the members and the committees of each House, shall be such as are declared by the Parliament", and as such Parliament can change what counts as parliamentary privilege (the rest of Section 49 gives a default until Parliament does so, but that's already been rendered obsolete).

IANAL, though.

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