Reason Australia, commonly referred to as the Reason Party or as simply Reason, was an Australian political party. Its leader, Fiona Patten, described the party as a "civil libertarian alternative". Patten was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council as at the 2018 state election in the Northern Metropolitan Region, after formerly being elected as a Sex Party member for the same seat in 2014. However, she lost re-election in 2022. Reason was registered at the state level in Victoria and New South Wales, as well as with the Australian Electoral Commission at the federal level. The party was disbanded in March 2024.

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 and the Australian Cyclists Party. In January 2018, the Victorian Electoral Commission 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 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 announced that she was standing as a candidate for the party for a New South Wales Australian Senate seat in the 2022 Australian federal election. She was unsuccessful. Patten was not re-elected at the 2022 Victorian state election, 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

Cannabis

In regards to cannabis the party supports the following:

Tax and churches

Social housing

Gambling

Health

Internet and media

Other areas

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 Fiona Patten to the Northern Metropolitan Region.

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's Minor Party Alliance. 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, 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, and Druery is now subject to an ongoing police investigation over this complaint.