Other Parties
Besides the two major party groupings, two other parties are currently of some significance in Australian political system. The first is the Australian Greens, at present seen as being the "third force" in Australian politics. It is a left wing and environmentalist party, generally achieving 7-13% of votes in elections conducted after 2004. The Greens party has superseded the formerly significant Australian Democrats, which was the largest third party between 1977 and 2004. The other party of some note is the Family First Party. Family First is a relatively recent party, with a Christian-influenced platform appealing mainly to social conservatives. They have achieved some success in recent elections, polling around 2% of the national vote. The proportional representation system has allowed these parties to win seats in the Senate, but wins in the House of Representatives have been rare. Noteworthy was The Greens victory at the 2010 Federal election in the Federal seat of Melbourne. In the same election, the revived Democratic Labor Party won a Senate seat (held by John Madigan). In 2011, independent and former National Party MP Bob Katter formed Katter's Australian Party, which now holds seats both in the House of Representative and in the Queensland Parliament.
Other political parties which have been of some significance in the past (since World War II), in terms of shaping Australian politics, include the Democratic Labor Party, One Nation Party, Nuclear Disarmament Party, the Australia Party, the Liberal Movement, and the Communist Party of Australia.
Currently, in order to register as a political party applicants must have a constitution outlining the basis of the party and either at least one member in Parliament or 500 members on the electoral roll. Parties may be "deregistered" if they no longer meet these requirements.
Read more about this topic: Political Parties In Australia
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“Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a “taxing- machine;” to the contented, a “machine for securing property.” Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.”
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