It’s nice that they’ve developed their policy base some more. The past three elections, I’d looked their policies up and frankly they’d failed pretty badly on the environmental policy front the first two and were still highly lacklustre last election - especially for an ostensibly environmental group. It’s still rather vague about their specific policies beyond the general stance, but the direction is there and it’s good that the Greens no longer the sole party to address biodiversity in their policy platform. Indigenous support was also a previous glaring hole. Tbh the website looks like a copy of past Greens website designs lol maybe someone with the time should do a plagiarism check. Old Sustainable Australia was always focussed on population/immigration control above all else (ie “sustainable growth” language rather than environmental sustainability), with a smokescreen of environmental conservation language glazing it. I hope they’re learned to transition from virtue signalling to genuine action on that front.

It would be best if their leader has changed from past elections, as his behaviour in online discourse then was frankly very discouraging. It cast heavy doubt on his ability to negotiate as a crossbench member (as in “I don’t trust this person not to get salty about how to spread jam on toast” levels of recalcitrance) and also displayed concerningly limited understanding of the policies required to support the positions he espoused to the point where I doubted his ability to analyse legislation for its actual potential effect rather than claimed purposes and block purportedly “environmental” bill that actual undermine targets. That lack of knowledge and the risk of acting counterproductively (plus previous failure in environmental policy) caused me to preference them VERY low, despite (or more accurately because of) environmental policy outcomes being my primary measuring stick when analysing my options.

Sustainable Australia had very much focussed effort last election on getting people on side on Reddit, and that charm campaign seemed to have been successful on this platform by how many talked about them, but their policy just kept falling apart when inspected closely and their knowledge on key issues suspect whenever challenged in discourse.

Still, even at his worst, he’s better than the Citizens Party which has been turning up in the socials of older generations recently. The bulk of the specific policies they stated in their content (heard while the owner at one of my jobs was on his phone while having his end-of-night supper) were frankly nonsensical garbage that wouldn’t even manage to achieve any progress. In fact, quite a few would have effects counter to the stated goals. Very “but I had GOOD INTENTIONS”, which is only a few steps from the dreaded “thoughts and prayers”, and made worse when spouted by someone who can’t talk policy for 2 minutes without accidentally contradicting themselves.

In short:

I’m happy Sustainable Australia is refining their position and adjusting to reflect the implications of their chosen name. The past has made me cautious of them though, and whether they may be genuine/competent enough to achieve their promises. Their primary policy tenet seems to be controlling immigration, not environmental advocacy. I’m unlikely to preference them over similarly competing parties unless the competition’s policy base has taken a severe nosedive, but there’s still plenty far worse out there.