Australian Democrats

The Australian Democrats was a centristpolitical party in Australia with a social-liberal ideology. The party was formed in 1977, a merger of the Australia Party and the New Liberal Movement, with former Liberal minister Don Chipp as its high-profile leader. Though never achieving a seat in the House of Representatives, the party had considerable influence in the Senate for the following thirty years. Its representation in the Parliament of Australia ended on 30 June 2008, after loss of its four remaining Senate seats at the 2007 general election. As of October 2012^[update], the organisation had disintegrated and control was contested by two factions associated with two former parliamentarians. The party was deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission on 16 April 2015 due to the party's failure to demonstrate requisite 500 members to maintain registration. Even before its deregistration and since it became extinct as a parliamentary party anywhere in Australia, the party saw many of its prominent members defect to the Greens, including former federal party leaders Janet Powell and Andrew Bartlett and former NSW MLC Arthur Chesterfield-Evans.

The party was founded on principles of honesty, tolerance, compassion and direct democracy through postal ballots of all members, so that "there should be no hierarchical structure ... by which a carefully engineered elite could make decisions for the members." From the outset, members' participation was fiercely protected in national and divisional constitutions prescribing internal elections, regular meeting protocols, annual conferences—and monthly journals for open discussion and balloting. Dispute resolution procedures were established, with final recourse to a party ombudsman and membership ballot.

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