History
The original CEC was established by members of the Australian League of Rights, an extreme right-wing group led by Eric Butler, in the 1980s in Queensland. Its purpose was to lobby for binding voter-initiated referenda. CEC candidate Trevor Perrett won the 1988 Barambah state by-election in Queensland, held after former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen resigned from State Parliament in 1987. However, Perrett soon switched to the National Party. By 1989, the CEC leadership was under the influence of the Lyndon LaRouche movement. By 1992, the LaRouche movement had taken full control, renaming the organizational newsletter and moving the headquarters from rural Queensland to a Melbourne suburb, with direct communications links to LaRouche's US headquarters established.
League of Rights publications now warn their readers to avoid the CEC, citing attacks on the British Royal Family for supposed drug connections and LaRouche's criminal convictions. They warn that the LaRouche movement is "strongly pro-republican" and that they have received reports that LaRouche's organization is being used by the Zionists.
In 1996, then-Liberal Party MP Ken Aldred, often tied to the CEC, was disendorsed by the Liberal Party after using parliamentary privilege to make allegations of involvement in espionage and drug trafficking against a prominent Jewish lawyer and a senior foreign affairs official, using documents that were later found to be forged, supplied to him by the CEC.
In the mid-2000s, the party found support from Muslim groups opposed to the detention of suspected terrorists by the United States at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In 2007, the CEC received the largest contribution of any political party, $862,000 from a central Queensland cattle farmer and former CEC candidate named Ray Gillham.
The CEC leader is National Secretary and National Treasurer Craig Isherwood of Melbourne, who has been a CEC election candidate three times. Other members of the Isherwood family are also prominent in the CEC; Noelene Isherwood is the party's National Chairman.
Read more about this topic: Citizens Electoral Council
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