Nov 5, 2009 3:30 PM PST    Text size: 

A by-election is held in a particular House of Representatives electorate whenever a vacancy occurs.

The organization said Patten will stand in contrast to the Liberal and Greens candidates to campaign for gay rights, a national sex education curriculum in primary and secondary schools. She also will tackle censorship issues, including the increasing influence of religion in politics and Internet filtering.

Patten also said she wants to see provisions introduced into the Electoral Act for parties to return public funding if a successful candidate resigns from the parliament for reasons other than ill health or genuine personal ones.

“Peter Costello, Brendan Nelson and the Liberal Party have caused the taxpayer to fork out over a million dollars for the Bradfield and Higgins by-elections,” Patten said. “Their only motivation has been personal aggrandizement and political advancement. The Liberal Party should now return the public funding they received when they won their seats.”

She also said that the Greens had “lurched strongly to the right” in preparing for the Higgins by-election.

“Clive Hamilton was the architect of Stephen Conroy’s plan to filter the Internet with his 2003 Australia Institute report,” Patten said. “He also subscribes to the extreme feminist view that non-violent X-rated films cause rape. It’s the same moral agenda that the Christian Democrats and Family First are running with.”

Patten said that censorship of the Internet was already at critical levels even before any national filtering scheme was in place. Many sex education, health and fertility agencies were having their sites blocked by inefficient filters.

She said the Australian Sex Party’s site had been censored by the government as well.

“This is a clear breach of the implied rights to political free speech in the Constitution and an example of how difficult it has become for anyone who deals in sexuality to operate online,” she said. “If ever we get a Clive Hamilton’s style national filter in place, the Internet will be off limits for many people.”