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 The Queensland election campaign has just become sexy: The Australian Sex Party plans to run in three seats.
Party convenor Fiona Patten says the group will use the Brisbane Sexpo, which started today (Thursday, February 26), to sign up members to get a Queensland branch up and running.
Patten said that although registering the party before the state election on March 21 was out of the question, the party was looking at running independent candidates in three high-profile seats: South Brisbane, currently held by Premier Anna Bligh; Southern Downs, held by Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg; and Indooroopilly, held by Queensland's sole Green MP, Ronan Lee.
She said the candidates would run on a number of platforms including GLBT issues such as same-sex marriage and the age of consent.
Queensland remains the only state in Australia to have an unequal age of consent between homosexuals and heterosexuals, with the age of consent being 18 for gay men, but 16 for heterosexuals.
“Every gay and lesbian person in Queensland should vote away from all the major parties on this basic human rights issue," Patten said.
Censorship laws, sex education, legal abortion, and the sexual rights of the elderly in Queensland nursing homes would also be on the agenda, she said, comparing the censorship laws in Queensland to those of totalitarian regimes.
"Queensland's censorship laws are far stricter than any other state in Australia, and the same as laws on erotica in totalitarian states like China and Iran." Sexpo, the annual health, sexuality and lifestyle expo, at which the Australian Sex Party plans to sign up members, runs at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, South Brisbane, from today until Sunday, March 1.
The Australian Sex Party is in the process of being registered at a federal level, with Queensland registration to follow if enough supporters sign up.
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