The policy priorities we highlighted during the previous election
Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Research
The Australian Progressives support:
- Policies to increase science funding and work toward agreement with all parties that science is key to our future.
- A review into the nation’s greatest challenges and the provision of grants each year to research solutions.
- A nationwide program for school students in areas of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM).
- Committing to open science research.
- Policies to provide a low cost research data storage service.
- Commit to building and securing core scientific capability and capacity within Australia by supporting a recurring budget for national scientific research.
Patent Reform
The Australian Progressives support:
- Policy to reduce the duration of copyright and patent protections to a level more suitable for the rapid pace of development/dissemination.
- A review into the penalties for copyright infringement.
- “Fair use” protections.
- Policy to invalidate any patents relating to human genes
Privacy and Data Protections
The Australian Progressives support:
- Policies that strengthen privacy protections for the public.
- Policies to curtail mass surveillance.
- Policies to require opt-out and deletion processes for data as well as ability to find out who your information has been passed on to.
- Working with the IT industry to improve privacy/data protections.
- Policies that would treat Metadata as any other private data and require a warrant for interception/collection by government agencies and must be specific and limited in scope.