At an anti-immigration rally in Sydney on Saturday, a man in a wide-brimmed hat handed out teal pamphlets for a new political venture aiming to capitalise on the crowd\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe major parties have failed us and the minor parties are too fragmented,\u201d the Reform Australia flyer read. \u201cJoin us to be election ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reform Australia was just one of many political hopefuls at the Put Australia First event \u2013 there were plenty of One Nation<\/a> and Libertarian T-shirts in the crowd \u2013 but it is the newest and perhaps the most mysterious.<\/p>\n Reform UK, led by anti-immigration populist Nigel Farage, said there were no links between itself and the Australian outfit despite the similar name and colour scheme, and the pamphlet bore no authorisation. It is not yet a registered political party with the Australian Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n But the digital footprint offers clues about who may be involved.<\/p>\n The Reform Australia website is registered to Walter Villatora, a former Liberal party branch president in Warringah<\/a>, one-time hopeful<\/a> for preselection and backer<\/a> of former prime minister Tony Abbott.<\/p>\n The Australian Financial Review first reported the link<\/a> in September. Guardian Australia understands he is no longer the president of the party\u2019s branch in Condamine on Sydney\u2019s north shore but remains listed internally as a Liberal member. Villatora says he has left the party.<\/p>\n Reached by phone, Villatora declined to answer questions and said he would call \u201cwhen we\u2019re ready to do media\u201d. A recruitment email sent in late November pitches Reform Australia as a \u201cbig tent\u201d. On the website, it suggests \u201cour supposed conservative party has lost its way, abandoning the values of hard work, family, and freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n Reform Australia pamphlet handed out at the Put Australia First rally in Sydney. Photograph: Ariel Bogle\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Villatora has diverse interests. Business records show he is the co-owner of the company behind Turning Point Australia, a local franchise of the late Charlie Kirk\u2019s conservative outfit, run by Joel Jammal. Back in 2022, before Villatora was a shareholder, Turning Point promoted<\/a> \u201cAn Evening with Nigel Farage\u201d as part of the firebrand\u2019s Australian tour.<\/p>\n Jammal told Guardian Australia he is not involved with Reform Australia \u2013 despite being named as tech support on one of the website registrations \u2013 and that all business ties with Villatora are amicably being ended this year due to the Reform project.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTurning Point Australia is a third party campaigner not a political party and therefore we maintain our own strict standards of separation with political parties,\u201d Jammal said. \u201cI wish Walter all the best with Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n Villtatora said he \u201cconcluded\u201d his involvement with Turning Point Australia to focus on Reform Australia and maintain Turning Point Australia\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n On Facebook, Reform Australia is already running ads<\/a> featuring one-time Liberal candidate for the 2025 federal election, Ben Britton \u2013 and has shared content supportive of<\/a> March for Australia and nuclear power<\/a>, as well as Turning Point videos about child grooming<\/a> and other topics.<\/p>\n Britton was dumped from the Liberal campaign in April<\/a> after he told Jammal\u2019s podcast that women should not serve in defence combat positions due to the physical impact on their bodies, among other claims.<\/p>\n Britton did not respond to Guardian Australia\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Confusingly, there is also a website called Reform Au, which web and business records link to Queensland man Luke Ashwood. Despite there being two separate websites, the \u201cjoin\u201d button on Reform Au redirects to Villatora\u2019s website.<\/p>\n Ashwood did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Scott Morrison\u2019s former chief political strategist and political consultancy Wolf & Smith founding partner Yaron Finkelstein said an Australian Reform party would struggle to make waves like its UK counterpart.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only did Brexit provide a springboard for Farage\u2019s political ambitions, his political brand was 20 years in the making. Who is the Australian version of that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cVery few new political parties, or independents, have the ground game to capitalise on their generic support. Even the UK Reform party knows it has to build a proper grassroots presence.\u201d<\/p>\n People walk from Belmore Park to Sydney Town Hall as part of the Put Australia First rally. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Support for the most prominent rightwing minor party locally, Pauline Hanson\u2019s One Nation, has soared to almost 20% since the May federal election. While it has a distant chance at any real power in parliament, One Nation\u2019s surging popularity has already influenced some within the Coalition<\/a> to pivot further right on energy and immigration policies \u2013 and a parade of other minor parties are also eager to step in.<\/p>\n Ben Raue, an election analyst, said there was a \u201cstructural incentive\u201d for far-right fringe groups to consolidate votes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure the people forming this party are trying to say, \u2018Oh, we need a party like Reform in Australia\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cThe answer is: we may not have a party with that name, but we have lots of parties like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At an anti-immigration rally in Sydney on Saturday, a man in a wide-brimmed hat handed out teal pamphlets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-325816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}