More on Minimum Membership Requirements for Registering Political Parties
The Morrison government has introduced legislation that will lift the membership threshold for registering a federal political party from 500 to 1,500.
The legislation will not require parties with current parliamentary representation to meet the new requirement. All other parties will have three months after the legislation is passed to convince the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) that they meet the new membership requirement to retain registration.
There are currently 10 registered parties represented in the Commonwealth Parliament, with an eleventh about to be added with former Liberal Craig Kelly announced this week as the parliamentary leader of the United Australia Party. Kelly’s signing means the UAP no longer needs to meet membership requirement, in the same way the party was able to rely on former One Nation Senator Brian Burston for registration in 2016.
That leaves more than 40 parties needing to triple the list of names they provide to the AEC to retain registration.
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