SYDNEY, Australia—Fiona Patten has a storied history in Australian politics. In 1992, she and partner Robbie Swan established the Eros Association, an activist group whose avowed mission was to fight rampant censorship Down Under and to make available to Australians a greater diversity of products, including sex toys and XXX videos. It also worked towards legalizing prostitution, which had varying degrees of legality in different Australian states, and campaigned to make stores that sell tobacco products "adults only."
But operating as an association was limiting to what Patten felt she could accomplish, so in 2009, she formed the eye-catchingly named Sex Party, which at its height had more than 7,500 members and managed to get representatives, including herself, elected to Parliament in the state of Victoria.
But despite its successes, Patten has decided that being the head of a "sex party" was itself a barrier to getting done all the things she wanted—"It got people’s attention so people could look at what we were doing, but some people couldn’t look past the name," Patten told The New York Times—and so she has now recast the Sex Party as the "Reason Party," and has officially deregistered the Sex Party from all official rolls.
"Australian politics is broken—the major parties are incapable of reform," she wrote on the Reason Party's new website. "The minor parties are being squeezed out and trust is all but lost, with corruption, factional in-fighting and inaction the norm. Australian politics has become cruel, self-centred and small-minded and right now extremists hold the balance of power ... It’s time for REASON."
"Our approach is inclusive," reads the party's Mission Statement. "REASON aims to deliver new methods of engagement and consultation, to improve access to the political process, especially for young Australians and minorities. REASON seeks to democratise government institutions and electoral processes. REASON will be future-focused and evidence-based," adding that "REASON fights for real change for the better on important issues such as inequality, a post-carbon economy, housing affordability, asylum seeker treatment, job security and accessibility and quality of education, health and infrastructure."
Joining Patten in the new venture is Dr. Meredith Doig, a former military officer, governance specialist and president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, whose members believe that "all significant beliefs and actions should be based on reason and evidence, that the natural world is the only world there is, and that answers to the key questions of human existence are to be found only in that natural world."
The new party does not appear to have any connection to America's Libertarian Party, whose main publication in the U.S. is Reason magazine, but both seem to support many of the same civil liberties objectives, including church/state separation, opposition to censorship of any kind, "right to die with dignity" laws and similar "rational" policies.
"Because there are so many people disengaged with politics, there are so many people who have been part of the major parties that have just lost faith in them, that is where we’re going to see our growth," Patten told The Times. "It’s going to be people steering away from the traditional parties and moving to Reason."
Sounds like something the U.S. could stand a big dose of!
