Antony Green on party registration

Tuesday, 20 July, 2004

An interesting snippet in a recent sealed section to subscribers has sparked a lively response from ABC election analyst Antony Green on the issue of political party registration.

Democracy and the Family First Party

Haven’t heard of the Family First Party? They’re a “values based party” with a representative in the South Australian Legislative Council since 2002 — even though (or maybe because) their values kept them coy about their links to fundamentalists churches like the Assemblies of God in the lead up to that poll.

Now, it looks as if they might be something else, too. Have a look at the Candidate Application Form they currently have up here [link no longer online].

Note the references to “Family First Party Australia Ltd”? Limited? When did we last see a political party set up this way? Was it in Queensland with One Nation? There’s no party constitution or details of any office holders other than their MLC, Andrew Evans, up on their website. This isn’t going to be another one of those “please explain” jobs, is it?

Can any canny reader fill us in? Why has the Commonwealth failed to act?

This wound up ABC election analyst Antony Green who responded as follows:

I have no comment on the Family First Party, but should point out that the Commonwealth Electoral Act does not actually specify any minimum requirements for a party constitution.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act’s Party registration provisions are essentially the same as those under which the whole One Nation fiasco came about under the Queensland Electoral Act. The Queensland act has been completely re-written, but the Commonwealth Act remains the same.

Indeed, the appeal judgment that quashed Hanson’s conviction opened a new can of worms. It provided a new definition of political party membership. The problem is, you have to go and look up some obscure High Court decision from the 1970s, and even then you’d need a degree in law to understand it.

The Australian Electoral Commission has for more than five years been pointing out that while a party must have at least 500 members, no definition of what defines a party member is provided in the electoral act. Indeed, some of the constitutions of registered parties do not define what a member is, but the AEC has no power to reject a constitution that fails to define membership. So it somehow guesses what a member is on the basis of whether when it writes to people from the membership list, they think they are members or not.

Let me quote from a submission the AEC made to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the conduct of the 2001 election, where it repeated points from its 1998 submission.

3.4.4

The AEC also sees problems with processing applications for registration from parties with constitutions which do not meet certain minimum standards and takes this opportunity to reiterate its recommendation 16 of the 1998 election FAD report. In order for a party to obtain registration as a political party for federal elections, it should have a constitution which clearly indicates that it is a political party, that it intends to participate in the federal electoral process and certain minimum requirements in relation to its operations.

Recommendation 22: that the Electoral Act be amended to clearly set out minimum requirements for a party’s constitution, such as it must:

  • be written;
  • include the aims of the party (one of which must be the endorsement of candidates to contest federal elections);
  • set out the requirements to become a member, maintain membership and cease membership;
  • set out the process for selection of officer-holders, including registered officer and party agent, the Executive and any committees; detail the party structure; detail the procedure for amending the constitution; detail the procedures for winding up the party.

As yet, the Joint Standing Committee, the Parliament and the Government have seen fit to ignore this whole question of properly defining what a political party is. Despite the legal mess that surrounded the whole Hanson matter, no one has seen fit to hold a proper inquiry into party registration.

The provisions governing political parties are manifestly inadequate and have been for years. Yet millions in election funding is handed over after each election, no questions asked. The AEC knows this is a problem, but they can’t get Parliament to give the issue priority.

The AEC are the monkeys in this mess. The inadequacy of party registration rules are the responsibility of the organ grinders, on all sides of politics.