Australian Sex Party deregistered
The Australian Sex Party has protested its deregistration at the federal level after allegedly falling below the required number of members.
The national electoral commission deregistered the political party on Monday because it allegedly could not establish that it had the minimum 500 members.
But the party has announced it will “vigorously appeal” the decision.
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“Since the party formed in 2009, we have had 6,000 people sign a statutory declaration on the bottom of a membership form, to say they want to be party members,” said co-founder and registered officer Robbie Swan in a statement.
The commission based its decision on a mere 26 phone calls and outdated mathematical formulas, Mr Swan claimed.
“The AEC needs to be funded and resourced properly so it can just go through party lists, one by one, until they either verify 500 members or they don’t,” he said.
“Without in any way criticising the staff at the AEC or their abilities to perform the job, they are being asked to use the most ridiculous methods to determine whether 500 bona fide members exist.
“The Sex Party is also at a disadvantage in that the majority of our membership is from young people who change their addresses frequently, do not have land line phone numbers and are much more transient than established Labor, Liberal or Green members.”
The party has joined the Australian Democrats, who were recently deregistered due to inadequate membership.
But the Sex Party is not dead yet, as it is registered separately with the Victorian electoral commission, where party leader Fiona Patten has a seat in that state’s upper house.
The New Daily attempted to contact Ms Patten for comment.
Australian Sex Party members are posting photos of their membership cards to social media to protest the deregistration by @AusElectoralCom
— australian sex party (@aussexparty) May 7, 2015