Deadline to register political parties

Any new political party wanting to be registered in time for an election held on 14 September 2013 needs to lodge a fully completed party registration application by Monday 13 May 2013. Registration enables a party name to be on the ballot papers for the election.

The legislative process for registering a political party takes a minimum of 3 months if the application is lodged in a form that fully meets the AEC guidelines.

If a party applies after Monday 13 May 2013 (or its earlier application does not meet the AEC guidelines and requires additional correspondence between the AEC and the party) the party's application for registration is unlikely to be processed in time for the party to be registered for a 14 September election.

The Prime Minister has announced her intent to advise the Governor-General to issue writs on Monday 12 August 2013 for the federal election to be held on 14 September 2013. Once writs are issued, the Register of Political Parties will be frozen from the day of the issue of the writs (proposed to be 12 August 2013) until the day after the last writ is returned.

No new parties can be added to the Register of Political Parties until the day the election writs are returned which may be several weeks after the election.

No changes to party names can be made on or after Monday 12 August 2013. Any application to change a party name needs to be lodged by Monday 17 June 2013.

Following the return of the writs, processing can continue on any registration applications held over.