A new centrist political party has launched in Australia, explicitly modelling itself on the UK's much-discussed 'moderation' movement. The party, called 'Commonwealth Future', debuted in Canberra this morning with a digital manifesto promising evidence-based policy, fiscal responsibility, and a 'rejection of the polarised fringes'.
Founder and former tech executive Dr. Eliza Tran told a packed press conference that the party would apply 'a test for truth' to all legislation, drawing on data analytics and independent expert panels. 'We are not left or right. We are forward,' she said, flanked by a QR code that led to a blockchain-verified version of the party's constitution.
The launch is seen as a direct copy of the UK's 'Moderation Party', which gained three seats in the last general election on a platform of algorithmic transparency and digital sovereignty. Commonwealth Future has already secured seed funding from a consortium of Sydney fintech investors and has hired a former Cambridge Analytica data scientist to design its voter outreach, a move that has raised eyebrows among privacy advocates.
'This is the Black Mirror of politics,' said Dr. Julian Vane, Technology & Innovation Lead at the Centre for Democratic Resilience. 'You have a party born from a focus group, using psychometric profiling to target moderates. It's genius from a UX standpoint, but terrifying for the user experience of democracy.'
The party's five core policies include a mandatory carbon price with revenue returned as a digital dividend to citizens, a 'sovereign cloud' for government data, and a universal basic income pilot for gig economy workers. The manifesto was written largely by an AI trained on the speeches of Tony Blair, John Howard, and Justin Trudeau.
'We are not copying the UK. We are optimising the model for the Antipodes,' Tran insisted when asked about accusations of plagiarism. 'Our algorithm analyses what actually works, not what feels good.'
Political analysts remain sceptical. Professor Ming Zhao of the Australian National University noted that Australia's compulsory voting makes it harder for centrist parties to break the duopoly. 'In the UK, many non-voters are mobilised by a moderate offer. Here, you have to win over people who already vote for Labor or Liberal. That is a much harder sell.'
Commonwealth Future plans to contest all 151 seats at the next federal election, leveraging a grassroots app that allows members to vote on policy positions in real time. Critics warn this could lead to 'mob rule by algorithms'.
Dr. Vane, who previously worked on user experience design at Google, sees a deeper trend. 'What we are witnessing is the standardisation of political platforms across the Anglosphere. The same UX patterns, the same A/B tested slogans, the same dark patterns. It is democracy as a SaaS product.'
The party's launch was accompanied by a glitchy livestream that crashed twice, which Tran blamed on a 'Denial of Service attack' from an unknown source. 'They fear the centre,' she said.
'Commonwealth Future' has already been registered as a trademark in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. The party's chief data officer confirmed they are in talks with 'like-minded groups' in South Africa and India. 'We are building a franchise,' she said. 'Moderation is a brand. And brands scale.'
