Last week's Capricornia by-election saw the rural Queensland seat flip from the LNP to the Commonwealth Party, with SpecificDear901 elected as the seat's newest MP. He will represent the gargantuan electorate over the next term, and adds another to the rank of the CPA, making a total of six CPA MPs in the lower house -- while this does not effect the government's majority, it is likely to help the CPA hold their feet to the fire in situations such as Question Time. Alison Brooks sat down with SpecificDear901 to ask him some questions about politics, beliefs, and his plans in the coming term of Parliament.

Alison Brooks: What was it that motivated you to enter politics?

SpecificDear901: Well, there were many many reasons I considered an entry and ultimately entered the arena of politics, but above all it was probably my deep passion for helping form a prospering and united community. I’ve always enjoyed politics from the sidelines however after I tried it myself I realized just how amazing it is to meet your constituents, to see problems and form policies to solve them, which ultimately results in helping the community you represent — which is what ultimately matters to me and to the people I represent.

How would you describe your political values?

On social and cultural matters I am rather socially conservative but I am not intolerant. In the end I believe in human rights of all people and push my ideology to the side when the law stands above it. As to my other values I am just a normal pragmatist, I try to see the world through realism and I oppose ideas on either the far left or far right as the extremes are ideologically incompatible with me as I believe excluding one side and orienting to only one view is not healthy for a person, we should look at all the sides and pick what works the best from them as that’s why we are here after all, to leave something nice behind to remember as our legacy.

After running in Sydney at the last election, why was it that you decided to run in the Capricornia by-election?

Reverse the tide and provide a quality representative of the people. The last election had many hopes for new beginnings and after I saw the potential for a change from the SPA continuing to run things to a potentially CPA led government I needed to take my chances in Sydney to stand with the side of reason and solutions. For Capricornia the thinking was the same however this time around I also saw there was more at play. Capricornia is plagued by a variety of issues which I heard of when talking with the people, so the motivation slowly changed from me just wanting a political shift to helping impact change and provide a better representation than the previous representative who abysmally failed in this regard.

What are you hoping to achieve as a member of Parliament?

Politicians actually need to do something? Haha, just joking. On a serious note, my primary work will consist of helping fulfill the CPA pledges we set, that I actually helped write out, which include the education equality act, infrastructure and regional development policies and a solid foreign policy — on that front I saw that in the house today my "Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Oceania security motion" is up for debate.

As a personal goal for my constituency there will be a few policies regarding regional development, crime prevention, healthcare and environment I want to work on as those are priority areas of my constituents and other than that I just hope to be seen as a strong and consistent advocate of my constituency and use every opportunity I have to advance it forward. On a more personal note I also have a small goal of getting the best rating from my staffers as the best Representative to work for, so we’ll see how that goes..

Do you consider yourself more a representative of your electorate or of your party, and why?

Easy, electorate. The party should be as a community of these representatives of their respective electorate in order to get together and unionize in a way that the core principles stay but also a common line is formed to actually solve issue, as that’s what cooperation allows. One representative can’t impact change but more can. I believe this is actually why some parties in parliament, including the aforementioned SPA and CLP sort of get into trouble often, they represent the party line and ideology to the extreme and forget to ask themselves who’s interests they serve. Being an ideologue is something I can tolerate but much like in everything in life there’s a time and place for everything, and currently it’s childish to act like this in our current state of affairs.

I've heard rumours of a "Christian Wing" within the Commonwealth Party. Are you a member of it, and if so, could you tell me more about the role your faith plays in your political views?

Indeed there is a Christian wing in the CPA and I am a member. The issue of religion and politics is always a complex one as we all universally accept that the state should not be dependent on religion but also should not regulate religion and attack religious liberties. For me this debate is simplified as faith only guides my core values and what I believe which is helping the weaker, calling for justice and being honest in everyday life, whether in personal or political life.

Faith doesn’t create legislation or polices for me solely, but I’d lie if I said that it doesn’t stand as a guide for the core premise of each of my policy ideas, so it has some indirect links but I’m not solely influenced by it and were that to happen it wouldn’t be particularly positive for our Australian democracy. As a direct link however it opened my eyes to issues of religious liberties here and around the world — with notable examples with persecution of Christians in parts of Africa and the Middle East or the rise in Islamophobia in certain countries. It is one of my key human rights and “equalities” concerns and just like I look out for people of different races, sexualities and nationalities, I also look out for people of different religions.

Final question - what do you think Australia should be doing in the face of rising international tensions, especially in regards to Taiwan?

The world is in chaos and turmoil, we have two options to go down in. Either we act upon in these contexts as some sort of world police or we try and de-escalate. In regards to Taiwan, we do not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, rather we still assert the position of the People’s Republic (sic) China over it, all while we respect the Taiwanese people and understand their value to the world. For the foreseeable future I believe this arrangement should stay as more escalation has no sense, however we should and will criticize China for any aggression and violations of human rights when it’s necessary, just like any other nation. In regards to the current situation we shouldn’t engage much, this is an issue of the United States and China and however much one wants to spin it it’s not a concern of ours to act in this, only thing we must do is call for diplomacy and peace and do anything we can to support peace. There’s already a war in Europe, conflicts and instability across Africa and the Middle East and another one would not help anyone.