Reason Australia, commonly referred to as the Reason Party or as simply Reason, was an

Australian political party The politics of Australia has a mild two-party system, with two dominant political groupings in the Australian political system, the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia. Federally, 12 of the 151 members of the lower house ( ...

. Its leader,

Fiona Patten Fiona Heather Patten (born May 1964) is an Australian politician. She was the leader of Reason Australia (also known as the Reason Party) and was a member of the Victorian Legislative Council between 2014 and 2022, representing the Northern Met ...

, described the party as a "

civil libertarian Civil libertarianism is a strain of political thought that supports civil liberties and rights, or which emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority (such as a state, a corporat ...

alternative". Patten was elected to the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House, Melbourne, Parliament ...

as at the 2018 state election in the

Northern Metropolitan Region Northern Metropolitan Region is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as the upper house) by proportional representation. The region was create ...

, after formerly being elected as a Sex Party member for the same seat in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

. However, she lost re-election in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

. Reason was registered at the state level in Victoria and New South Wales, as well as with the

Australian Electoral Commission The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for the management and oversight of Australian federal elections, plebiscites, referendums and some trade union A ...

at the federal level. The party was disbanded in March 2024. Patten subsequently joined

Legalise Cannabis Australia Legalise Cannabis Australia (LCA), also known as the Legalise Cannabis Party (LCP) and formerly the Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party, is a Single-issue politics, single-issue Australian political party. It has a number of policies tha ...

History

In August 2017, Fiona Patten announced the launch of a new political party called Reason Australia, in part born from a merger of the

Australian Sex Party The Australian Sex Party was an Australian political party founded in 2009 in response to concerns over the purported increasing influence of religion in Australian politics. The party was born out of an adult-industry lobby group, the Eros Asso ...

and the

Australian Cyclists Party The Australian Cyclists Party was a minor political party in Australia. It was registered with the New South Wales Electoral Commission in 2014, and unsuccessfully contested the 2015 New South Wales state election. It was also registered later wit ...

. In January 2018, the

Victorian Electoral Commission The Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC), formerly the State Electoral Office, is the statutory body responsible for the running of state, municipal and various non-government elections in Victoria, Australia. Independence It is an independen ...

officially changed the party's name from "Australian Sex Party – Victoria" to "Reason Victoria". In May 2018, the party applied to the AEC for registration for federal elections as "Reason Australia", which was approved on 30 August 2018. In December 2019, the NSW branch of the

Voluntary Euthanasia Party The Voluntary Euthanasia Party (VEP) was a minor political party in Australia, founded in early 2013 by Corey McCann to advocate for legislative change to allow voluntary euthanasia in Australia. The party's inception was strongly supported by Dr ...

merged with the Reason Party, and changed its name to "Reason Party NSW". In December 2020 it was announced that Patten would enter a coalition with independent Mildura MP, Ali Cupper who sits in the Legislative Assembly. Cupper ended the agreement on 13 May 2021. In February 2022,

Jane Caro Catherine Jane Caro (born 24 June 1957) is a feminist social commentator, writer and lecturer based in Australia. Early life and education Caro was born in London in 1957 and emigrated to Australia with her parents as a five-year-old in 1963. ...

announced that she was standing as a candidate for the party for a New South Wales

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the Australian House of Representatives, House of Representatives. The powers, role and composition of the Senate are set out in Chap ...

seat in the

2022 Australian federal election The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday, 21 May 2022, to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Morrison government, Liberal–National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, soug ...

. She was unsuccessful. Patten was not re-elected at the

2022 Victorian state election The 2022 Victorian state election was held on Saturday, 26 November 2022 to elect the 60th Parliament of Victoria. All 88 seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Legislative Assembly (lower house) and all 40 seats in the Victorian Legislat ...

, leaving Reason with no elected representatives.

Parliamentary actions

The party's main goal should they be elected was to establish voluntary assisted dying laws for Victoria. After a long process and a marathon legislative session, the bill became law on a conscience vote. In 2017, Patten renewed calls for a pilot program of a safe injecting room in North Richmond, in response to a large increase of Victorian drug-related deaths in the last several years. In the first session for the Legislative Council of the year, she introduced the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Pilot Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2017. At the time there were regular overdoses in the streets of Richmond, and that number has been reduced significantly since the centre was opened, with various estimates about the number of lives saved due to the opening of the centre.

Policies

The party's policies include:

Drug law reform

* Drug use to be treated as a health issue, not a criminal one * Cannabis to be legalised, regulated and taxed * Trial hydromorphone (analogue of heroin) on prescription * Increase in medically supervised injecting centres * Electronic vaporisers and liquid nicotine should be legalised *

Pill testing Drug checking or pill testing is a way to reduce the harm from drug consumption by allowing users to find out the content and purity of substances that they intend to consume. This enables users to make safer choices: to avoid more dangerous subst ...

at every music festival

Cannabis

In regards to cannabis the party supports the following: * The legalisation and regulation of cannabis for people over the age of 18 * Support for the legal possession and use of cannabis for people over the age of 18 * Amending drug driving laws to test for impairment not presence * The cultivation of a defined number of plants in their principal place of residence * Regulations that allow for the establishment of

cannabis social club A Cannabis Social Club (CSC), sometimes called Cannabis Club, Cannabis Association, or Teapad, is a type of cannabis retail outlet, an industry model for regulated cannabis organised as non-profit cooperatives in which cannabis is cultivated, sh ...

s * Establishing a regulatory body to oversee the industry * Regulation on the potency of THC in legal cannabis products * Market controls to avoid the creation of a ‘Big Cannabis’ industry * Restrictions on advertising, marketing and promotion products * Competitive pricing to undercut the illicit market * An appropriate tax framework to help fund cannabis related programs * Expunging all historical personal-use cannabis criminal records

Tax and churches

* Remove tax exemptions from businesses owned by religious institutions, while protecting their charitable activities * Prevent religious organisations from discriminating by reforming anti-discrimination laws * Religious oaths to be removed from parliamentary proceedings * Extend mandatory reporting laws to religious institutions and end exemptions for admissions disclosed in religious confessions

Social housing

* Encourage

build-to-rent Build to rent is a term for purpose built, institutionally owned and professionally managed residential property that is let on the open market rather than sold. Growth in the UK market In October 2016, it was estimated that only some 8,000 ...

and rent-to-buy schemes and remove tax barriers *Stamp Duty to be reduced from investments in social housing

Gambling

* Setting a maximum bet limit for poker machines and limiting the influence of the pokies industry

Health

* Vaccination to protect public health and reduce the spread of preventable diseases *Establishment of health hubs * Early intervention and evidence-based prevention are the main focus * Create an ombudsman for aged care and retirement housing, and establish a statewide ageing strategy

Internet and media

* Expand free wifi in public spaces including on all public transport * Anti-ISP filtering * National media classification and introduction of non-violent sexual content label

Other areas

* Focusing on community housing and ensuring that at-risk people have a place to live * Decriminalise sex work and remove censorship so that people can make their own choices about what they want to watch * Improving public transport especially for high growth outer suburban areas * Increasing oversight around politicians and tighten the rules to prevent unethical behaviour by the state's politicians and public figures * Taxing the non-charitable business arms of religious institutions. This includes the estimated $9 billion portfolio of the Catholic Church in the state * Holding a referendum on whether or not Australia should become a republic * A nationwide trial of a

four-day workweek A four-day workweek is an arrangement where a workplace or place of education has its employees or students work or attend school, college or university over the course of four days per week rather than the more customary five-day workweek. This ...

* Provide improved, interconnected and safer walking and cycling paths, including: ** Investment in safe, direct and continuous bike routes, separated from other forms of traffic ** Revitalisation and expansion of existing cycling trails ** Providing bike racks on buses, trams and trains * The right for terminally ill people to choose voluntary assisted dying ** Repealing laws that prevent the territories from enacting voluntary assisted dying legislation ** Promote and support legalisation of voluntary assisted dying in every state and territory of Australia

Electoral history

Victorian state elections

In addition to fielding candidates in a number of Victorian Legislative Assembly seats, the party stood candidates in all regions of the Victorian Legislative Council after 2017. In 2018 the party succeeded in re-electing

to the

Victorian state by-elections

*Chipp was endorsed by the party, but the party was not registered with the VEC at the time, as they were in the process of changing their name.

Links

The party has had some involvement in

Glenn Druery Glenn William Druery is an Australian political strategist, electoral campaigner and ultra-distance cyclist. He has played a leading role in the electoral success of various micro and minor parties in Australia since the mid-1990s. He acquired ...

Minor Party Alliance The Minor Party Alliance (MPA), also known simply as the Alliance, is an alliance of small Australian political parties, currently active in Victorian state politics. It was created by Glenn Druery's "Independent Liaison" business, which assist ...

. However, in the lead-up to the 2018 state election, Fiona Patten had a falling out with Glenn Druery due to his new conflict of interest as chief-of-staff to Federal Senator,

Derryn Hinch Derryn Nigel Hinch (born 9 February 1944) is a New Zealand-born media personality, politician, actor, journalist and published author. He is best known for his career in Australia, on Melbourne radio and television. He served as a Senator for ...

, who was running candidates in the election and receiving favourable preferences due to Druery's private business dealings as the "preference whisperer". She claimed that he demanded that the Reason Party pay him money, or she would not be re-elected. Patten made an official complaint to the

VEC Vec may mean: Mathematics: * vec(''A''), the vectorization of a matrix ''A''. * Vec denotes the category of vector spaces over the reals. Other: * Venetian language (Vèneto), language code. * Vecuronium, a muscle relaxant. * vec, a sentient mor ...

, and Druery is now subject to an ongoing police investigation over this complaint.

References

External links

Reason Party
official website of the Federal party
Fiona Pattens Reason Party Victoria
official website of the

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

party {{Political parties in Victoria (Australia) 2017 establishments in Australia 2024 disestablishments in Australia Political parties established in 2017 Political parties disestablished in 2024

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

Censorship in Australia Civil rights and liberties in Australia Drug policy reform Drugs in Australia Liberalism in Australia Libertarian parties in Australia Progressive parties Secularism in Australia Sex industry in Australia Sex positivism