Aug 24, 2007

Bye bye Dems

by Dave Riley
I was going to write the header for this post , "Bye bye Dems?" but realised that there wasn't any question at all. The Democrats will function at this upcoming election to deny a few jockeying points to the Greens if they do some nasty preference deals in order to try and save whatever remains of their electoral bacon.

But after losing party registration in Queensland and Tasmania -- this recent failure to thrive in the ACT (see below)suggests that they are indeed on their way out.

Boo hoo.

The GST party is committing, in effect, slow suicide.
  • The Democrats suffered a massive loss of support at the 2004 Federal election, reducing them to 1.24% of the national vote. None of their senators up for re-election survived the vote.
  • On 18 March 2006, at the 2006 South Australian State election, the Democrats were reduced to 1.7% of the Legislative Council (upper house) vote.
  • In the New South Wales state election of March 2007, The party fared poorly, gaining only 1.8% of the Legislative Council vote.
So it goes...
MEDIA RELEASE from the ACT Electoral Commissioner

Proposal to cancel registration of Australian Democrats for ACT elections

The Australian Democrats may be removed from the ACT Register of Political Parties as it does not have enough members, ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green said today.

The ACT Democrats has informed the Electoral Commissioner that it does not have the 100 members required for registration as a political party for ACT Legislative Assembly elections.

Under the ACT's Electoral Act, the Electoral Commissioner is required to cancel the registration of a political party where the Commissioner believes on reasonable grounds that the party does not have at least 100 members who are on the ACT electoral roll. Before cancelling a party's registration, the Commissioner is required to invite written objections to the proposed cancellation.

A notice inviting public objections to the proposed cancellation has been published on the ACT Legislation Register. The notice can be found at www.legislation.act.gov.au/ni/2007-247/default.asp .