Antony Wilson, the 449th person I’ve met on my quest to have lunch with 500 strangers, gets irritated when he watches sport and hears spectators critique the players. “If you think you can do better, why don’t you get on the field and do something about it?” he thinks to himself.

Antony has decided to heed his own advice. Dismayed by the state of the country and disillusioned by the performance of politicians, he’s decided to run for the Sydney seat of Bennelong in the federal election, which is likely to be held in the first half of the year.

Antony and his party, the Fairer Australia Party, have three main policy focuses.

First, Antony wants to significantly reduce personal income tax; to pay for it, he’d close tax loopholes and eliminate wasteful government spending.

Second, Antony wants to promote a culture of bipartisan governing, in which politicians from across the spectrum work together to solve problems. He believes this would be popular with voters, which would incentivise partisan politicians to change their ways.

Third, Antony wants Australia to become a kinder place, which would be achieved, in part, by educating youth about how to act and conduct relationships. 

Antony also believes the government should turn tourism into our number one industry, because of its capacity to create many jobs and many different types of jobs. To promote this goal, all domestic holidays would be tax-deductible; and to ensure people travelled widely, they would be allowed to make only one claim per destination in their lifetime.

While Antony knows people will be sceptical of his candidacy, he feels he doesn’t have the right to complain about problems if he’s not willing to fight for solutions.

Make Australia fair again.