Where this sits

Worldview Map

Four axes, two charts. Where does the New Australia platform sit relative to traditions you already know - and to the parties on the Australian ballot?

Read the four reviews Back to home

Radar charts are inherently reductive: a worldview as rich as conservatism or progressivism collapses to four numbers between 0 and 100. We use them anyway because, read alongside the four prose reviews, they give a useful bird's-eye answer to the question readers actually ask first - "so where does this thing sit?". The placements below are editorial judgements, not measurements; every entry carries a short rationale beneath the chart so you can argue with the placement, not just stare at it.

How to read the axes

Each axis runs from a low pole (score 0) to a high pole (score 100). High is not "good" - the high and low labels name positions, not preferences.

  • Economic freedom Managed economy Market liberalism

    Where the worldview sits on the role of the state in production, the level of taxation and transfer, and the density of regulation. High = market-led with a thin state; low = active industrial policy, high transfers, dense regulation.

  • Social traditionalism Progressive Traditional

    Stance on family, identity, civic continuity, and the pace of social change. High = preserves inherited forms (family, civic ritual, settled norms); low = treats most inherited forms as open to revision in the name of equality and self-definition.

  • Centralisation Federalist / subsidiarity Centralised Commonwealth

    Where decision-making sits between Canberra, the states, local councils, and civil society. High = strong Commonwealth, national uniformity; low = decisions made as close to the affected community as practical.

  • Public-reason pluralism Exclusive secular reason Faith-friendly public reason

    How readily moral arguments grounded in religious or transcendent claims are admitted to public deliberation, within non-establishment of any church. Both poles refuse a state church; the difference is whether religiously-grounded arguments may be heard as public reasons (high) - and the civic order admits a moral source it did not invent - or are treated as private and inadmissible (low) on the assumption that civic reasoning can be metaphysically neutral.

New Australia vs four political traditions

25 50 75 100 Centrist Conservative Libertarian Progressive New Australia Economic freedom Social traditionalism Centralisation Public-reason pluralism
  • New Australia
  • Centrist
  • Conservative
  • Libertarian
  • Progressive
  1. New Australia
    • Economic freedom 70
    • Social traditionalism 60
    • Centralisation 25
    • Public-reason pluralism 75

    Market-leaning but not laissez-faire (room for Commonwealth restraint where civic infrastructure is at stake); respects family, civic ritual, and the Anglo-Australian institutional inheritance without treating them as untouchable; strongly federalist, with subsidiarity as a default rule; pluralist on public reason - religious and secular citizens both argue from their own ground without establishing a state church - but explicit that the civic order is not metaphysically neutral about persons, and names the Anglo-Christian moral inheritance as load-bearing for those rights rather than treating it as decorative civic furniture. The vice-revenue stance is a worked example of all four axes at once: more interventionist than libertarian on gambling-design predation (state may regulate honestly), less paternalist than progressive on adult tobacco harm reduction (legal regulated vapes / snus, not prescription-only), more federalist than centralising on the WA pokies precedent, and explicitly public-reason on sin taxes (rate justified against harm-reduction outcomes, not fiscal need).

  2. Centrist
    • Economic freedom 50
    • Social traditionalism 50
    • Centralisation 65
    • Public-reason pluralism 35

    Median-voter positioning: split the difference on economics, accept whatever cultural settlement currently polls best, lean on the Commonwealth as the unit of governance because it matches the unit of national politics. Religion is welcome privately but treated as a liability in public argument.

  3. Conservative
    • Economic freedom 70
    • Social traditionalism 80
    • Centralisation 40
    • Public-reason pluralism 70

    Centre-right: market economy with a residual safety net; preserves family, civic continuity, and inherited norms; instinctively federalist and wary of Canberra over-reach; comfortable with religiously-informed arguments in public life within a non-establishment frame.

  4. Libertarian
    • Economic freedom 95
    • Social traditionalism 35
    • Centralisation 15
    • Public-reason pluralism 50

    Classical-liberal: minimum state, maximum personal and economic freedom; agnostic-to-permissive on social questions provided no one is coerced; deeply federalist and devolutionary; treats religion as a private matter but defends religious liberty as a first-order right. This entry describes the *tradition*, not any specific contemporary leader: hybrid figures who pair libertarian economics with traditionalist family commitments and faith-friendly public reason (e.g. Milei) sit closer to the New Australia point than to this point on the map, because two of the four axes (social traditionalism, public-reason pluralism) move with them. On vice-market questions the tradition tends toward 'tax adults if you must but otherwise let them alone'; New Australia diverges on gambling-design predation (the variable-ratio reinforcement schedule is not a free informed choice and the equal-dignity test bites) while converging on adult tobacco harm reduction (legal regulated vapes / snus rather than prescription-only).

  5. Progressive
    • Economic freedom 25
    • Social traditionalism 15
    • Centralisation 80
    • Public-reason pluralism 20

    Labor-Greens-Teal soft-left: active state in the economy, redistribution and care-economy investment; broadly progressive on social and identity questions; favours national policy uniformity through a strong Commonwealth; tends to treat religiously-grounded public arguments as illegitimate in liberal-democratic deliberation. On vice markets the tradition is paternalist on tobacco (prescription-only vapes, ever-rising excise) but conflicted on gambling, where Labor state governments depend on the revenue and the federal Murphy 2023 ad-ban remained unlegislated under a Labor government; New Australia is less paternalist than this on adult tobacco harm reduction and harder than this on pokies-as-state-revenue.

New Australia vs major Australian parties

25 50 75 100 Australian Labor Liberal-National Coalition Australian Greens Teal Independents One Nation New Australia Economic freedom Social traditionalism Centralisation Public-reason pluralism
  • New Australia
  • Australian Labor
  • Liberal-National Coalition
  • Australian Greens
  • Teal Independents
  • One Nation
  1. New Australia
    • Economic freedom 70
    • Social traditionalism 60
    • Centralisation 25
    • Public-reason pluralism 75

    Market-leaning but not laissez-faire (room for Commonwealth restraint where civic infrastructure is at stake); respects family, civic ritual, and the Anglo-Australian institutional inheritance without treating them as untouchable; strongly federalist, with subsidiarity as a default rule; pluralist on public reason - religious and secular citizens both argue from their own ground without establishing a state church - but explicit that the civic order is not metaphysically neutral about persons, and names the Anglo-Christian moral inheritance as load-bearing for those rights rather than treating it as decorative civic furniture. The vice-revenue stance is a worked example of all four axes at once: more interventionist than libertarian on gambling-design predation (state may regulate honestly), less paternalist than progressive on adult tobacco harm reduction (legal regulated vapes / snus, not prescription-only), more federalist than centralising on the WA pokies precedent, and explicitly public-reason on sin taxes (rate justified against harm-reduction outcomes, not fiscal need).

  2. Australian Labor
    • Economic freedom 35
    • Social traditionalism 30
    • Centralisation 75
    • Public-reason pluralism 30

    Centre-left in office: active fiscal hand, strong industrial-relations and care-economy footprint; broadly progressive on social questions while retaining a residual working-class cultural conservatism; comfortable with national programs run from Canberra; secular-default in public reasoning.

  3. Liberal-National Coalition
    • Economic freedom 65
    • Social traditionalism 65
    • Centralisation 50
    • Public-reason pluralism 55

    Centre-right coalition: market-leaning with selective interventionism; conservative on family and civic continuity but moderated by Liberal small-l liberalism; federalist in rhetoric, more centralist in practice when in government; mixed on faith-friendly public reason - tolerant rather than welcoming.

  4. Australian Greens
    • Economic freedom 15
    • Social traditionalism 10
    • Centralisation 80
    • Public-reason pluralism 15

    Eco-progressive left: deep state role in the economy, climate, and redistribution; strongly progressive on social and identity questions; favours national (and supra-national) coordination; treats secular public reason as the default and is the most sceptical of religious argument in public life.

  5. Teal Independents
    • Economic freedom 55
    • Social traditionalism 35
    • Centralisation 60
    • Public-reason pluralism 30

    Affluent-electorate centre: market economy with serious climate and integrity intervention; socially progressive in the inner-city liberal mode; comfortable with strong national institutions where they enforce standards; secular-default on public reason.

  6. One Nation
    • Economic freedom 50
    • Social traditionalism 90
    • Centralisation 55
    • Public-reason pluralism 75

    Populist national-conservative: economically mixed (protectionist on industry and migration, market-friendly on small business); strongly traditionalist on family, identity, and national continuity; centralist where the nation-state matters (borders, sovereignty), federalist on cultural questions; openly faith-friendly in public argument.

Caveats
  • Editorial, not measured. Every score is a judgement by the authors of this site, not a survey result or a coding of party platforms. The rationales above are where to argue.
  • Axes are simplifications. "Economic freedom" smushes tax, regulation, and industrial policy into one number. "Public-reason pluralism" smushes very different debates about religion in public life. Useful for orientation; useless as a verdict.
  • Real movements are coalitions. A point here represents the centre of gravity of a tradition or party, not the diversity inside it.
  • No moral-realism axis. A worldview can be faith-friendly without being moral-realist (and vice versa). Foundational Values argues for moral realism; the chart leaves that argument to the prose.
  • The full case lives in the prose. See the four adversarial reviews for what each tradition would actually say about this platform, in its own voice.