Party Register

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) maintains a register of political parties. Federal registration as a political party provides rights, benefits and compliance obligations to organisations wishing to promote the election of candidates to the Commonwealth Parliament. This register lists those parties which are eligible to have the party affiliation of their endorsed candidates printed on ballot papers.

Registration is not compulsory.

Why Register?

The benefits of registration include:

• Party affiliation (the party name or its abbreviation) may be printed next to the names of endorsed candidates and Senate groups on ballot papers (sections 169, 210A and 214 of the Act refer);



• Access to copies, including electronic copies, of the electoral roll and habitation index for each State and Territory in which the party is organised, and voting information in relation to an election (section 90B of the Act refers). There are restrictions on the use of this sensitive information for other than the electoral purposes allowed by sections 91A and 91B of the Act;



• Access to an electronic list of postal vote applicants for an election (section 189A of the Act refers); Election funding, where the entitlements of candidates who have been endorsed by the party and who receive at least 4% of formal first preference votes are paid to the party agent (sections 294 –302 of the Act, and the Funding and Disclosure Handbook for Political Parties refer).

To be eligible for registration a party must be:

• Established on the basis of a written Constitution that sets out the aims of the party and; either
• a parliamentary party, which is a political party with at least one member in the Parliament of the Commonwealth;

or

• a political party that has at least 500 members who are entitled to be on the electoral roll and are not relied on by any other party.

Applications

Applications for registration are made to the AEC’s National Office. For parliamentary parties they may be made by the party secretary or all the parliamentary members. For other political parties the application must be signed by ten members of the party of whom one is the secretary of the party.

The application must set out the name of the party, its abbreviation (if any), its registered officer's name, address and signature and whether the party wishes to receive election funding. It must be accompanied by a copy of the party's Constitution and for non-parliamentary parties 500 individually signed membership application/declaration forms, a membership list and a statutory declaration confirming party membership of those who had signed the forms.

Parliamentary parties must include a Statutory Declaration from the secretary of the party affirming the Parliamentary members as members of the party, and also letters from the Parliamentary members that state they are members of the party. These letters must be on Parliamentary letterhead.

An application cannot be processed by the AEC in the period between the issue and the return of the writ for a Commonwealth election or by-election.

A $500 fee must accompany registration and change of name or abbreviation applications.

Notification and Objection

When the AEC receives an application for party registration it publishes a notice in the Commonwealth Gazette and major newspapers in each State and Territory. This notice invites objections on the grounds that:

• the application does not meet the legislative requirements;
• the party is not an eligible political party;
• the name is one which should be refused by the AEC.

Any person or organisation may object to a party being registered on these grounds by submitting reasons in writing to the AEC during the month after the date of notice. The AEC will refuse to register a party if the name or abbreviation of the party:

• comprises more than six words;
• is obscene;
• is the name or abbreviation of the name of an unrelated recognised* party;
• closely resembles the name or abbreviation of an unrelated recognised* party;
• comprises the words Independent Party, or contains the word Independent together with the name of an unrelated registered party.

* The term recognised refers to a Parliamentary party, a registered party or a party registered or recognised* in a State or Territory that has endorsed candidates in the last five years.

Deregistration

The AEC may deregister a party on the following grounds:

• the party has ceased to exist;
• the original registration was obtained by fraud or misrepresentation;
• a non-parliamentary party has failed to endorse candidates for election for a period of 4 years;
• the registered officer did not comply with a review notice;
• the party has less than 500 members and no Parliamentary members; or
• at the request of the party.