Principles

Fusion has a strong commitment to basing policy development and decision making on the most robust and credible evidence available. This principle is underpinned by the values of Advancement, Ethical Conduct & Equity:

• Advancement
  
  • Foundation of Progress: The progress of our modern society is built upon the incremental accumulation of reliable evidence. This is used to address the needs of today, anticipate the challenges of tomorrow, and develop solutions which ultimately improve our standards of living. To pursue policies or make decisions for ideological reasons without consideration of evidence is therefore to reject advancement which would be considered antithetical to us.
• Ethical Conduct
  • Honesty and Integrity in Governance: For us this necessarily includes respecting the truth, however uncomfortable it may be - acting honestly, transparently, and in good faith. A policy or decision which cannot be justified honestly and transparently is not ethically sound, and a policy or decision justified without evidence when evidence is available is not done in good faith.
  • A corollary of this is that if we were to discover that the evidence clearly and demonstrably showed two or more of our values were in irreconcilable conflict, we would be obligated to review our values in light of that evidence in order to continue acting in an ethical manner.
• Equity
  • Fair and Informed Decision Making: Pursuing evidence-based policies helps drive practical understanding of the potential impacts that decisions are likely to have on all segments of society. This helps to mitigate the influence of bias and assumptions that result in unequal treatment of different groups. To consciously accept unsupported assumptions is to willingly enable the likely perpetuation of unfair policies.

Upholding this principle in government requires reflection on reality, even if that reality is uncomfortable or confronting. It requires a commitment to continuous learning, critical evaluation, and a readiness to adapt policies based on the evolving landscape of evidence. It demands that policymakers not only gather and respect comprehensive evidence but also communicate the rationale behind decisions. Demonstrating the capability to engage honestly with difficult realities is vital to improving and maintaining trust in government.

General implications for policy focus areas:

• Climate Rescue
  • Acknowledging the inconvenient truth of the evidence that the climate is changing so drastically and so rapidly as to threaten our civilisation on many fundamental levels, also demands that we act upon that acknowledgement.
• Sustainable Development
  • Developing policies based on scientific evidence ensures that environmental and developmental policies are sustainable and effective in addressing diverse global challenges beyond climate change, like resource depletion, and biodiversity loss.
• Long-term Vision
  • Recognising the evidence that many issues we are currently facing are a consequence of major deficiencies in long-term planning, brought about by systems which encourage short-term thinking.
  • A corollary of this is that systemic reform to encourage longer-term planning in decision-making is a natural focus.
• Crisis Management and Resilience
  • Rigorous assessment, and subsequent operationalisation, of lessons learned enhances a country's resilience to emergencies and disasters, enabling it to prepare efficient and effective response strategies.

Fusion commits to cultivating an open and efficient government that emphasises transparency, minimises bureaucratic overhead, and ensures accountability for those in public office. This principle guides our actions to streamline government processes and enhance the integrity of public service. It is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

• Personal Liberty
  
  • Preventing Government-Induced Burnout: By minimising unnecessary bureaucracy we can mitigate the turnover among professionals in critical services like healthcare and education. While regulation is necessary, it should be designed with the focus on enabling these professionals to excel effectively in their primary roles, enhancing their job satisfaction, efficacy, and ultimately improving outcomes. Excessive or poorly designed bureaucracy stifles professional autonomy and diminishes service quality. Teachers who end up spending more time on paperwork than on teaching are not enabled to teach effectively.
• Ethical Conduct
  • Ensuring Accountability and Transparency: All government actions and decisions must be made as transparently as possible, with mechanisms in place to hold public officials accountable for malfeasance or negligence. Corruption breeds in obscurity, ultimately resulting in public distrust and systemic inefficiency, and a lack of consequences undermines the integrity of the entire government.
• Equity
  • Promoting Equitable Outcomes through Transparency: An Open and Efficient Government leverages transparency and public scrutiny as mechanisms to enforce fair treatment. This constant visibility and accountability ensures that all government actions are evaluated for their impact on different communities, leading to equitable access to services and opportunities. Without external oversight to challenge or expose biases and discrepancies, government actions risk becoming opaque and unaccountable, allowing unfair policies that perpetuate systemic inequities to be implemented without public knowledge or resistance.

We not only aim to enhance the functionality and integrity of government operations but also foster a governance structure that is both effective in its operations and ethical in its conduct, which is essential to maintaining a trusted and equitable public service environment.

This also means that we don't have a particular ideological angle on "big" or "small" government, so much as "efficient" government. Essentially, the government should be involved as much as it needs to be to establish or maintain the functions of these principles.

• If something needs government involvement, it should be involved.
• If something doesn't benefit from government involvement, then it shouldn't be.

An interesting outcome of this is that if an independent body is the most effective approach, then it would be the government's responsibility both to set that up, and to disentangle itself afterwards so that successive governments cannot exploit it for other purposes.

General implications for policy focus areas:

• Ethical Governance
  • We must promote practices that enhance transparency and accountability in government by implementing robust oversight mechanisms and establishing independent review boards to investigate and act upon misconduct by public officials.
• Fair & Inclusive Society
  • Inclusion in improving government requires ensuring that mechanisms exist which enable public feedback to be analysed with regards to policy reforms, regulation, and the structured provision of public services. Improvements that are identified can then be actioned.
• Efficiency in Public Services
  • Optimising the efficiency of public services to ensure they serve the public effectively and respond agilely to citizens' needs will require properly funding the implementation of digital solutions with clear functional objectives to be met.

Fusion is committed to maintaining a secular government that respects and protects the diversity of beliefs and non-beliefs among its citizens. This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

• Personal Liberty
  
  • Freedom of Belief: Secular governance protects the personal liberty of individuals by allowing them to practise their beliefs without undue coercion or interference from the state. It ensures that individuals have the freedom to live according to their own values and convictions, which is a fundamental aspect of personal autonomy and expression.
• Ethical Conduct
  • Respect in Government: A secular government fosters a culture of respect that is irrespective of cultural and religious backgrounds. It encourages decisions to be made based on ethical principles that are considerate of the whole nation, not dictated by religious doctrine. This respect for diversity not only enhances social cohesion but also reinforces the integrity and accountability of the government.
• Equity
  • Fair and Impartial Governance: Secular public policies should be applied impartially, ensuring that no particular religious beliefs or non-beliefs receive preferential treatment or face prejudice. This impartiality is crucial for promoting a fair society that gives common opportunities to all individuals. Any rejection of secularism in governance is a tacit embracement of either religious or personal ethics that are not reflective of the wider nation.

In cases where individual rights and freedoms may conflict, such as the expression of religious beliefs in public spaces, secular governance provides a framework for balancing these rights in a way that respects all parties. It is essential to a society that is respectful of its citizens' personal liberties. It demands ongoing commitment to neutrality in religious matters, continuous monitoring of the impact of religious developments on public life, and the courageous defence of those who would be marginalised by institutional agents.

General implications for policy focus areas:

• Secular Humanism
  • Policies that are based on humanist principles have secular foundations. These emphasise the importance of human values and scientific understanding in shaping societal norms and laws.

Fusion is dedicated to responsibly using governmental power to ensure the safety, rights, and well-being of all citizens, residents, and visitors. This goal seeks to ensure that the exercise of authority is always justifiable, proportionate, and aimed at preventing harm while respecting individual freedoms.

What belief a person may have about the role of government drastically underscores their perspective on what they do, and can cause significant difference of opinion between people who otherwise agree on the goals being pursued. A person may, consciously or unconsciously, believe in multiple roles of government, but it is the core role which will define their positions on what is considered acceptable use of government authority.

In this case we are specifically talking about what the people who make up the government believe their role is with respect to the populace, not what their supporters think is the role of the government. This distinction is key because, while the sentiment can go both ways, one can only set readily definable objectives in one direction.

i.e. This is not, "What do People who vote Liberal think the role is?" but instead, "What do the Liberal Party MP's think their role is?" (Swap in any other party name as appropriate.)

For some examples, an MP may believe that the role of government authority is to:

• Defend; national sovereignty even through actions to the detriment of their citizens.
• Lead; socially or economically, believing that people should reflect the will of government, not vice versa.
• Dominate; extracting from other nations to benefit themselves or this nation exclusively.
• Support; a welfare state with perfect inverse priorities of Authority to Lead where the government seeks to unthinkingly reflect the desires of the people (relying on "Wisdom of the Crowd").
• Rule; as the people only exist to support the will of those who matter.

Different beliefs are not always mutually exclusive, but we abide by the philosophy that the primary use of government Authority should be to Protect; which is a focus on the people of a nation rather than the more nebulous ideals of statehood. (Explained more below.)

This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Safety, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

• Personal Liberty
  
  • Ensuring Autonomy: This philosophy on Authority reinforces Personal Liberty by preventing external threats that impede individual freedoms, supporting the freedom for people to live without fear of harm from others, thereby enhancing their autonomy. Allowing such threats to persist, resulting in situations where individuals are coerced or harassed without recourse, would be to ignore infringements on the autonomy and freedom of Australian citizens.
• Safety
  • Preserving Public Safety: It is necessary to actively prevent threats to public health and safety, including environmental health and safety. People are safer in some ways (personal safety, protection of property, integrity of business dealings) when there is a trusted and enforced legal system that guarantees penalties for breaching the safety of others. If we forsake the capacity of the legal system to have Authority to Protect, we fall into a “Might is Right” situation – this is unpredictable and can present a threat to our safety.
• Ethical Conduct
  • Maintaining Accountability: Protective measures must be transparent and justifiable. Examining the expected social and environmental impact of proposed policies and legislation is vital to ethical governance. Any domestic application of Authority must be subject to public review and oversight to ensure that protective measures are fair, justified, and appropriate to the social concern that they seek to address. There must be trust and faith in the institutions responsible for upholding public safety to ensure legitimacy, for without agreement on legitimate government authority, there is no ability to enforce Ethical Conduct.
• Equity
  
  • People with the least power are least able to protect and further their interests, so protective measures must be applied fairly across all demographics. Failing to provide appropriate measures of protection across different communities would exacerbate inequalities, and without agreement on the protective application of authority, there is no ability to enforce equitable policy.

In principally seeking to constrain only the excesses of freedom that harm the freedoms of others, this includes protection from both the harm afforded by others and by ignorance (people will make convenient decisions unless informed or encouraged to do otherwise), but is informed by our value of Personal Liberty to explicitly accommodate informed individual choices.

Examples of this principle in action would include the use of Authority for:

Protection measures such as restraining orders for individuals who have sought help to escape from domestic violence. A lack of intervention in cases of stalking or harassment allows perpetrators to continue their violations.

Enforcing environmental regulations to prevent pollution and protect natural resources, ensuring communities are safe from environmental health risks. Insufficient enforcement can lead to environmental disasters, and exploitation of natural resources by private industry, to the excessive detriment of the environment, is a tragedy of the commons. These things undermine the long term health and safety of the entire community.

Distributing the role to protect among diverse government-institutions (e.g. legal aid), communities(e.g. mutual aid), and citizens (e.g. civics education) builds a comprehensive framework to advance this understanding of responsible application of authority. Ultimately, a Bill of Rights that elaborates on the relevant limits of government authority is the legal centrepiece of enshrining this philosophy on the matter of authority.

General implications for policy focus areas:

• Climate Rescue
  • In a rapidly degrading global climate, proactive measures to safeguard natural resources and restore environmental health through direct intervention, are vitally supported.
• Fair & Inclusive Society & Individual Freedoms
  • A Bill of Rights and a robust industrial relations framework protects people against exploitation and danger from both governments and employers.

Fusion recognises the deficiencies in Australia's democratic systems. Nevertheless, the value we place upon democracy is underpinned by our support of individual rights, limited only as needed by the authority of the government to protect people; an authority vested in that government by the democratic process to exhibit the will of the people to be able to go about their lives without others infringing unreasonably on their individual rights.

While relatively robust, we seek to advance and reform our system to create a more representative and participatory electoral system. Increases along these lines will produce a more inclusive and responsive democratic process. This is important as the only way for authority to be conducted ethically is for its use to be transparent enough for the people to see, and for it to be governed by a system wherein the people can hold the government to account for their use of authority - a criteria necessitating democracy.

This aspiration arises from our values of Personal Liberty, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Enhancing Civic Engagement: Democratic reform that emphasises strengthening individual engagement in the political process can empower individuals to actively participate in shaping policies that directly affect their lives. In contrast, without proactive measures to enhance civic engagement, the political system discourages meaningful participation and produces a subsequent loss of agency.

Ethical Conduct

• Strengthening Electoral Integrity: The integrity of a government and the strength of its mandate, flows directly from the degree to which it is perceived as representing the will of the people. Various governments have been viewed as unrepresentative in Australian history and the results were unfavourable for them. Therefore, it would be unethical to recognise the representational weaknesses of the electoral system we have, but entertain no goals to reform it to address these weaknesses.

Equity

• Fair Representation: Our ultimate objective is to improve political inclusivity, with a goal of making politics more accessible for minority viewpoints that are, nevertheless, locally popular. Every idea has its day, and the current system significantly discourages entertaining even good ideas that come from outside the margins. Continuing to endorse a system which overlooks the specific needs and voices of minority and marginalised groups can only continue to exacerbate existing challenges which underlie many social and economic problems.

It is often in the interest of a governing party to have a less engaged and informed citizenry that may be compliant to their wishes. This principle demands that we foster a more engaged and informed citizenry to ensure fair and ethical conduct in our electoral processes, and further, that we pursue reforms that incentivise a governing party to encourage an informed electorate as a pathway to sustaining their influence.

With such political structures we can build a stronger, more resilient democracy.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Fair & Inclusive Society

• We must develop and support initiatives that facilitate easier access to the political process for all citizens, particularly focusing on education and outreach programs tailored to marginalised communities. This includes enhancing language access services and providing greater support for Indigenous political participation.

Civic Education & Engagement

• Expand educational programs to increase understanding of and engagement with the democratic process, ensuring that all citizens are well-informed about their rights and the mechanisms available to influence government policy.

Fusion commits to advancing science and technology in a manner that ensures that technological progress contributes positively to society. We emphasise not only the growth of scientific knowledge and technological capabilities but also the responsibility to use these advancements to enhance quality of life. This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Advancement, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Enhancing Autonomy through Technology: Technological advancements should enhance an individual's control over their lives and expand their choices. Technologies should empower people, not control them. Ensuring open access to technological innovations and promoting digital literacy are vital for supporting personal freedoms in the digital age.

Advancement

• Catalysing Innovation and Application: Science and technology must be supported financially and socially in order to make new discoveries and advance their development into everyday applications. This support is crucial for driving advancements that enhance health, efficiency, and overall societal well-being. Without active support for the science and technology sectors, the pace of innovation slows, hindering the development and application of breakthrough ideas.

Ethical Conduct

• Responsibility in Technological Development: Developing and implementing technology must be done with foresight and responsibility. It is necessary that technological advancements are made with consideration for their long-term impacts on society and the environment. Neglecting this responsibility undermines trust in technological progress and potentially causes irreversible damage.

Equity

• Accessibility and Cost Efficiency: Science and technology must drive efficiencies that not only reduce costs but also enhance accessibility, introducing new assistive technologies and safer processes. To be transformatively innovative in this area, the results must be universally accessible; "if it's inaccessible to the poor, it's neither radical nor revolutionary." To genuinely empower people, advancements must ultimately become affordable and beneficial for the wider community. Without this, stagnation between discovery and development will severely limit our ability to leverage opportunities beyond the options available today.

Ultimately it is vital that we pursue an integrated approach to science and technology, where advancements are guided by ethical standards, incentivised for equitable access, and assessed for the restriction of personal liberties. This comprehensive approach ensures that technological progress serves the widest segment of society, safeguarding values and rights while also improving quality of life.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Sustainable Development

• Aligning technological advancements with sustainable environmental practices to ensure that technology supports long-term ecological health.

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Utilising technology to bridge gaps in society, providing tools that support education, healthcare, and economic opportunity for all.

Ethical Governance

• Ensuring that governance mechanisms keep pace with technological changes, promoting transparency, accountability, and public participation in technological policymaking.

Technology Integration

• It is necessary to prioritise integrating cutting-edge scientific and technological advancements to society at large, to enhance quality of life across diverse communities.

Fusion is committed to fostering an enduring relationship with the natural world, guided by the concepts of sustainability and stewardship. This commitment is rooted in a desire to ensure that our environment is still a rich and valuable experience for current and future generations. This principle is underpinned by the values of Ecological Harmony, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Ecological Harmony

• Preserving Natural Balance: Our commitment to Ecological Harmony involves maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems through sustainable practices that prevent degradation and promote recovery and rejuvenation. Allowing ecosystems to degrade leads to irrevocable biodiversity loss and ultimately the breakdown of ecosystem services essential for life.

Ethical Conduct

• Accountability and Responsibility in Environmental Management: Ethical Conduct in environmental stewardship means ensuring that our actions are transparent and accountable. It demands that we make decisions that consider the long-term impacts on the environment, avoiding practices that cause irreversible damage or that are unsustainable. To ignore these matters is to betray future generations and rob them of their birthright.

Equity

• Ensuring Environmental Justice: Equity in environmental stewardship means ensuring that the benefits of natural resources and the burdens of environmental impacts are shared fairly across all communities. This includes preventing practices that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations and promoting inclusive policies that allow everyone to enjoy a clean and healthy environment. Failing to balance these matters can lead to environmental injustices where some communities bear a greater burden of environmental degradation while others reap the benefits of exploitation.

Implementing sustainable practices across all industries is crucial, and involves everything from reducing emissions and waste, to carbon drawdown, to adopting circular economy principles that maximise resource efficiency. Developing economic incentives that encourage businesses and individuals to engage in conservation efforts is key to broadening the impact of our environmental policies. Incentives that facilitate green initiatives are needed to motivate stakeholders to invest in sustainable practices.

Establishing robust policies that aim to minimise the environmental footprint of human activities ensures that our use of natural resources are sustainable. Humans have interfered with nature to a critical level already, and interference is worsening and national ecological rehabilitation is urgently required.

Policies must be changed, affecting current economic, technological and ideological structures to achieve a balance between human and ecological needs.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Climate Rescue

• Aligning economic growth with ecological sustainability, resilience, and enhancement; to ensure that development today does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Ensuring that environmental policies contribute to a society where every individual has access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

Fusion is committed to pioneering sustainable urban development that harmoniously integrates environmental sustainability with urban planning and infrastructure. This commitment is aimed at fostering not only ecological balance but also ensuring economic prosperity and social inclusivity. This requires identifying the root causes of complications that worsen urban challenges like congestion, pollution, and housing affordability, and addressing those root complications with the goal of ensuring that urban growth enhances the overall well-being and resilience of our society. This principle is underpinned by our core values of Advancement, Ecological Harmony, Safety, and Equity:

Advancement

• Innovative Urban Solutions: Promoting innovative solutions in public transport and renewable energy integration supports urban advancement. Without innovation there are no sustainable solutions to prevent cities from stagnating under the pressures of increased congestion and related outcomes.

Ecological Harmony

• Environmental Sustainability in Urban Growth: Integrating green infrastructure like green roofs and walls into urban designs enhances biodiversity, improves air quality, and mitigates urban heat islands, while sustainable transportation systems, efficient water management, and energy-efficient buildings further supports the reduction of urban pollution. Requirements for initiatives like these align urban prosperity with ecological health drive economic and urban development to coexist with the environment. The broader environmental, health, and livability costs from neglecting this far exceed the cost of mitigating the impact of this crisis on community health and biodiversity.

Safety

• Resilient Infrastructure for Safer Cities: Developing infrastructure that can withstand environmental and human-made challenges is vital for maintaining safety in urban areas. It is unacceptable to permit the construction of new developments that will be prone to catastrophic failures during natural disasters.

Equity

• Housing Affordability and Inclusivity: Urban development must include an appropriate diversity of options to ensure that communities are well-supported with affordable housing options. Ignoring this aspect leads to increased homelessness and social disparity, as lower-income families are pushed out of urban centres and infrastructure is overstrained to accommodate inefficient developments, further impacting those least able to personally compensate.

Ultimately we aim to create cities that are not only habitable and vibrant but also resilient and sustainable, ensuring that urban environments contribute positively to our ecological and social fabric.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Green Urban Planning

• Implement policies that mandate the inclusion of green spaces and environmentally friendly materials in new developments. Promote urban agriculture and sustainable landscaping as integral parts of city planning.

Public Transport and Mobility

• Develop and expand efficient public transportation networks to reduce reliance on personal vehicles, thereby decreasing urban congestion and pollution.

Affordable Housing

• Construct affordable housing projects that meet high environmental standards. Ensure these projects are well-connected to city centres and amenities to reduce travel times and energy use.

Regulatory Reforms for Sustainability

• Implement changes in building codes and land use policies to require sustainable development practices that are environmentally sound and economically viable.

Fusion recognises that sustainable economic growth can only be achieved through inclusive economic institutions. An economic institution is simply a rule or convention, formal or informal, that shapes interactions by defining how resources are allocated, how transactions are conducted, and how economic decisions are made. A focus on advancing inclusive institutions ensures that as many members of society as possible have equitable opportunities to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from economic progress.

It's worth being clear that this is not about cultural inclusivity; this is about equality under the law, equal access to banks, conditions for loans, opportunities to engage in business, etc. This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Advancement, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Maximising Individual Potential: Inclusive economic institutions enhance personal liberty by allowing individuals the freedom to choose their pathways and pursue their aspirations without undue barriers. By establishing a foundation where everyone has equitable access to the tools and opportunities to succeed, these institutions foster a society where personal liberties are supported by economic freedom. Failing to develop inclusive economic systems restricts these freedoms and limits individual potential, thereby undermining personal liberty.

Advancement

• Catalysing Sustainable Advancement through Inclusivity: Sustainable advancement is rooted in the development and support of inclusive economic institutions that not only drive technological and educational progress but also ensure that such progress is accessible to everyone. By promoting inclusivity, we harness the full potential of our society, which is essential for genuine and enduring economic growth. Failing to foster these inclusive institutions is a hindrance to growth and advancement, resulting in stagnation and thwarting long-term prosperity.

Ethical Conduct

• Upholding Integrity through Inclusive Practices: Ethical conduct demands that economic decisions and policies are implemented with a commitment to fairness and transparency, which are hallmarks of inclusive economic institutions. By developing inclusive economic policies, we foster high ethical standards that limit opportunity for exploitation and corruption, thereby building trust and stability within the economy. Ignoring this enables unethical practices to flourish and disenfranchises broader society.

Equity

• Promoting Inclusive Economic Institutions: It is essential that our economic policies and systems function as inclusive economic institutions. These institutions are designed to provide equal opportunities for all individuals, removing systemic barriers that limit participation and ensuring that the products of economic growth do not disproportionately accumulate to a select few. Inclusive economic institutions are crucial because they act as a counterweight to the concentration of wealth and power, which ultimately leads to the impoverishment of society. Failure to cultivate such institutions not only deepens economic disparities but also stifles overall economic potential, leading to underutilisation of human and physical resources.

The importance of creating opportunities that enable widespread participation in the economy cannot be understated when it comes to creating sustainable economic growth. Short-sighted policies that prioritise immediate economic gains over long-term well-being are unsustainable and selfish. These policies promote excessive wealth centralisation and ultimately undermine the foundations of wealth generation.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Ensuring that our economic opportunities have the potential to enrich the lives of all citizens, not just a select few, is vital to a society that considers itself to give everyone a “fair go”.

Sustainable Development

• Aligning economic strategies with sustainable practices ensures our environmental resources are preserved and enhanced.

Innovation in Economic Practices

• Encouraging innovation that drives economic growth and also provides solutions to social and environmental challenges.

Fusion is committed to ensuring the digital privacy and security of all citizens, safeguarding digital data against unauthorised access and misuse while respecting individual rights and freedoms. It has never been more important to protect personal information in our increasingly digital world. Effective action in this space is fundamental to maintaining personal autonomy, promoting equity, and fostering trust in both technology and social institutions, including government. This principle is underpinned by our core values of Personal Liberty, Advancement, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Empowering Digital Freedom: The right to be informed about data collection and the freedom to choose how personal data is used enables individuals to have control over their own digital information. Without stringent protections, unauthorised surveillance or data breaches can lead to identity theft and a significant loss of personal autonomy and security.

Advancement

• Promoting Innovation in Privacy and Security Technologies: Advancing cybersecurity technologies and practices is crucial for protecting against current and emerging digital threats. Neglecting this results in outdated defences, making personal and communal digital infrastructures vulnerable to attack and ultimately suppressing the potential for innovation.

Ethical Conduct

• Ensuring Transparent and Fair Data Practices: Requirements for transparent operations that clarify how data is collected, used, and shared exemplifies respect for individual rights and fosters trust. The lack of this undermines public confidence and leads to exploitative situations arising from natural markets. The sale and sharing of data without explicit user consent erodes trust in digital platforms and undermines efforts to use them to improve government services.

Equity

• Universal Access to Digital Security: Global application of digital security regulations, protections, and resources, ensures that no demographic is disproportionately vulnerable to privacy violations. Failure to provide such equity, and to instead rely on personal education, will exacerbate the digital divide, leaving both older and underprivileged Australians to be ever more exposed to cyber threats.

This is an area where the natural market forces have the potential to do incalculable damage to the fabric of civilisation as we know it. Equally, it is an area where direct conflict with these forces is likely to either fail, or result in more nefarious workarounds. Demanding the ethical handling of data, rather than regulating its specific usage, enables the market forces to operate within a paradigm of informed consent - promoting a culture of trust and accountability in the digital age.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Digital Rights and Accessibility

• Fostering initiatives that aim to educate the public on digital rights, safe practices online, and the importance of data security and privacy.

Ethical Governance

• Transparent Data Governance Policies: Policies that enforce transparency and accountability in data collection and usage.

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Equitable Access to Digital Resources: Facilitate access to digital security resources and education for all segments of society, particularly older and marginalised communities.

Innovation in Cybersecurity

• Support for Cybersecurity Innovations: Foster the development of advanced cybersecurity technologies and solutions.

Fusion is invested in fostering a society where cultural diversity is not only recognized but actively supported and integrated into our social fabric to ensure that all cultural expressions are respected and have the freedom to flourish without interference. By promoting respect and understanding, Fusion aims to create an environment where cultural diversity is seen as an asset rather than a challenge, fostering a richer, more inclusive community. By removing barriers to the growth and development of culture, Fusion aims to empower our communities to proactively evolve to meet the changing demands of the world and to prevent the monopolisation of our experiences.

This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Advancement, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Cultural Expression and Digital Freedom: Individual autonomy in the digital realm requires the right to freely express and access cultural and creative works. Restrictive copyright laws and distribution practices that limit creativity and access to cultural materials stifle the cultural evolution process. Restrictions that stifle creativity, limit self-expression, and hinder personal growth and education are inimical to the concept of Personal Liberty.

Advancement

• Promoting Innovation through Open Access: While some protections for creators and IP owners are necessary to ensure that creative investments are capable of generating profitable return, by simplifying copyright laws and supporting reforms to fair use regulations on creative works we can foster a dynamic cultural landscape where innovation is not hindered by outdated legal restrictions. An overly restrictive regulatory environment creates cultural stagnation and suppresses innovations that flow into all fields of knowledge.

Equity

• Ensuring Access to Cultural Works: Measures like Open Access for publicly financed research and the removal of parallel importation restrictions maximise individual access to the experiences and opportunities that arise from cultural innovation. Gated access to culture not only perpetuates inequality by denying disadvantaged groups the benefits of full cultural participation and access to knowledge, but reduces the total potential of society to respond to existential challenges.

One serious implication of this principle is that it necessitates the reconsideration of various international treaties, which enable the foreign imposition of restrictive regulations on Australian society. This is unavoidable if we are to transform the landscape of cultural and creative expression and ensure that it remains a vibrant and accessible part of our society, both physically and digitally.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Digital Rights and Accessibility

• Advocate for policies that ensure open access to digital cultural materials and support the removal of technological protection measures that restrict access.

Cultural Education and Participation

• Expand public funding for cultural hubs and libraries that provide access to digital tools and resources for creative expression, ensuring these facilities support community engagement and cultural exchange.

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Implement a basic income guarantee, which innately supports artists and creates funding opportunities for cultural projects that encourage innovation.

Fusion is dedicated to fostering excellence in public education, ensuring that education is inclusive and accessible, equipping individuals with the knowledge and skills necessary for personal fulfilment and societal advancement. This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Advancement, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Empowerment Through Knowledge: Education is a powerful conduit for self-expression and self-actualization, transferring essential knowledge from experts to those aspiring to become experts themselves. It provides individuals with the tools and knowledge necessary for informed participation in society. This empowerment expands the choices available to individuals to freely and competently pursue their passions and careers, thereby enhancing personal liberty. Neglecting public education limits the ability to make informed choices, thereby constraining personal liberty.

Advancement

• Catalyst for Societal Progress: High-quality education is crucial for societal progress, enabling individuals to flourish in their chosen fields. It builds upon the incremental accumulation of existing knowledge, continuously expanding our understanding and driving forward the sum of human knowledge and innovation. Education not only fosters the critical thinking skills necessary for technological and social advancements, but also ensures that progress is sustained across generations. Neglecting public education stunts technological, cultural, and scientific advancements.

Equity

• Accessible and Fair Education: Ensuring that every individual, regardless of background or socioeconomic status, has access to quality education is a commitment to fairness and equity. It addresses disparities and promotes a more equitable society by providing equal opportunities for all to succeed.
• Mechanism for Social Change: Education acts as a key mechanism for social change and for enabling society to evolve to meet emerging challenges. This is particularly true when invested in the younger generation as a tool that is available irrespective of background and upbringing, offering everyone the chance to succeed and contributing to a more equitable society.
• Neglecting public education allows those with privileged access to steer society to their own benefit and unfairly hoard access to opportunities.

Upholding this principle requires commitment to constant evaluation and adaptation of educational policies to meet the needs of a changing world, ensuring that public education remains a powerful tool for personal and societal advancement. It demands an adaptive curriculum that incorporates current knowledge and technologies. It also tackles the ongoing issue of educational inequality, emphasising reforms that ensure all students receive access to a comparable level of education. It also requires employing more ESOs, administrators, special education teachers, counsellors and other positions that support the education environment, so that teachers are freed up to do their actual jobs. We cannot expect teachers to keep up with an adaptive curriculum and maintain their own personal and professional development without freeing them up to focus on doing so. Too much is currently expected of the role.

A notable consequence if free public education is extended to effective tertiary education, is that the incentivisation of study pathways cannot be utilised as a method of inflating workforce numbers in an area - the corollary of which is that the only way to inflate a workforce that is lagging, is to consider the conditions and benefits of that work. One cannot be disconnected from that reality with delusions about the effectiveness of alternative incentivisation.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Innovation in Educational Methods

• Encourages the adoption of innovative teaching methods and technologies to enhance learning experiences and outcomes. There are fundamental flaws in the idea of judging teacher competence through student outcomes. Standardised testing can only be an indicator of the child's strengths and weaknesses, not a metric of the teacher's functioning. Educational innovation should ultimately seek to match the methods to the students.

Encouraging Lifelong Learning

• Promotes policies that support continuous education and training throughout an individual's life and recognises that education does not end with formal schooling.

Exposure to Non-Teaching Experts

• Teaching is a skillset, an attitude, a professional capacity all unto itself, entirely independent of the information being taught. An expert, without skills, shouldn't be a teacher. However, a teacher could facilitate ways that experts without teaching skills can contribute to the educational process through roles other than traditional teaching, enhancing the educational experience by bringing real-world expertise.

All of which falls under the remit of “Education for Life”.

Fusion aspires to ensure that all citizens have access to high-quality healthcare services that are affordable and comprehensive. This principle is underpinned by the values of Safety, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Safety

• Health as a Safety Right: Ensuring that every individual has access to healthcare is fundamental to their physical and psychological safety. A robust healthcare system protects individuals from preventable health issues and provides the necessary support during illness and recovery. Neglecting this aspect of safety can lead to greater public health risk and societal harm, and increased health risks for the population.

Ethical Conduct

• Responsibility and Integrity in Healthcare Provision: A healthcare system must be guided by the highest standards of ethical conduct, ensuring that care is delivered honestly, transparently, and with the utmost consideration for patient welfare. This requires practices that respect patient autonomy, uphold privacy, and are funded to pursue best practice in medicine. Ethical lapses in healthcare erode trust and cost lives.

Equity

• Universal Access: Healthcare must be accessible to everyone, irrespective of their socioeconomic status, race, gender, or geographic location. Failure to provide universal access to healthcare services not only deepens existing inequities but also contradicts any commitment to a fair and inclusive society.

Equitable healthcare systems minimise impacts of economic disparity and reduce overall costs through accessible preventative care that is relatively inexpensive compared to restorative care. Financial barriers should not prevent access to necessary medical treatments.

In the face of growing and evolving challenges in public health from emerging and potential health crises, healthcare policies must adapt to remain effective and relevant. As medical science evolves and public health challenges change, accessibility is key to leveraging a system to address emerging health crises promptly.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Future Focused Innovation in Healthcare

• Forward-thinking health policies that anticipate future medical needs and demographic changes enable health costs to be met sustainably.
• The next great challenge in healthcare is to extend healthspan. This requires integration of technological and medical innovations into the healthcare system to improve care quality and accessibility. This might include patient-centric digital health records, personalised medicine, accessible screening, and more efficient healthcare delivery models that can expand access and improve patient outcomes.

Health and Well-being

• It is necessary to recognise the importance of mental, physical, and social well-being, which healthcare policies directly impact. An inclusive healthcare policy must promote general health which requires integrating core allied health services into the system holistically. This includes dental care, mental health care, physical therapy, and wellness education programs.

Fusion notes that while this principle obviously supports single-payer public healthcare, there are other models that have been proposed (but not tested) which this principle would also support.

Fusion is committed to dismantling barriers that impede equal access to opportunities across all sectors of society, with a goal to ensure that everyone has the freedom to achieve their potential without undue hindrance from outdated or unfair systemic practices. This principle is underpinned by the values of Personal Liberty, Ethical Conduct, and Equity:

Personal Liberty

• Freedom to Pursue Opportunities: Personal Liberty is significantly impacted by systemic barriers that limit choices for particular groups or demographics. Ignoring or accepting these barriers restricts personal development and autonomy, fundamentally contradicting our commitment to fostering a free and open society.

Ethical Conduct

• Fairness and Justice in Systemic Practices: Ethical Conduct demands that we address and rectify injustices embedded within our systems. This includes reforming institutions and practices that have historically disadvantaged certain populations. To overlook the need for systemic reform is to fail in our moral obligation to promote fairness and justice, and to undermine trust in our commitment to ethical governance.

Equity

• Ensuring Equal Access for All: We believe that true equity means removing systemic barriers that prevent individuals from accessing essential opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship. Failing to actively remove these barriers perpetuates inequalities and hampers social mobility, denying individuals the chance to both contribute to, and benefit from, our society's progress.

This is likely to result in proactive, and occasionally provocative, policy measures. To proactively identify, assess, and dismantle systemic barriers requires not only regular reviews of existing regulations, practices, and structures to ensure they align with our modern understandings, but also requires challenging long-held ideas and beliefs about human capabilities. Access to universal quality education, for example, means that many younger people are substantially more qualified to weigh in on things than their predecessors were at the same age, and this has substantial implications for society.

Barriers can also be created in communities by sudden changes though, resulting in a strong need for community and stakeholder engagement. Engaging with affected communities is essential for both understanding the nuances of systemic barriers and for crafting effective solutions that don't simply result in different barriers arising.

This principle recognises the profound impact of systemic barriers on individual lives and societal health, and it directs our actions towards creating a more equitable, free, and ethically governed society.

General implications for policy focus areas:

Fair & Inclusive Society

• Developing a workforce that reflects the diversity of our society not only enhances innovation and productivity but also ensures that economic opportunities are distributed fairly.

Educational Equity

• Ensuring that educational opportunities are accessible and equitable is crucial for laying the groundwork for lifelong success and fulfilment.

Secular Humanism

• Ensuring that systems exist to address access to basic needs such as food, shelter, and housing, without people having to become reliant on charity.