Wednesday, June 16, 2021

On June 3, the New Liberals were officially registered as a political party by the Australian Electoral Commission, enabling them to run candidates for federal elections in the country.

While the party has been in existence for over a year, with member Karen Porter having run in the 2020 Eden-Monaro by-election as an independent candidate, the party applied for registration on December 16.

The party has already faced legal barriers for registration. It shares the “liberal” moniker with Australia’s governing Liberal Party, who called the New Liberals a “cynical attempt to piggyback” on their own name, even presenting a survey from Crosby Textor of over 2000 voters that claimed over two-thirds of voters could percieve a connection between the parties, in an attempt to prevent the party’s registration. Ultimately, the Australian Electoral Commission decided that, on balance, the name of the New Liberals was “sufficiently visually and aurally distinct” from the Liberal Party’s name, and registered the party.

Wikinews spoke with the New Liberals’ party leader Victor Kline via email about the plans of the New Liberals and their policies and values.