A movement<\/a> that sincerely wants Palestinian liberation was affronted by Yemini\u2019s provocation. It tried to register itself as the \u201cFree Palestine Party\u201d, but the Victorian Electoral Commission had to knock<\/a> it back, because Yemini bagged the name first and the names are essentially the same.<\/p>\n Aren\u2019t there laws to regulate party names? How can something as serious as a ballot paper be the site for such trolling? <\/p>\n The party logos of the Free Palestine Party (left) and Free Palestine (right).<\/p>\n How the laws about registering a political party work<\/p>\n Party registration has been around for a bit over four decades. Its main purpose is to aid voters. Voting is compulsory in Australia and people tend to vote for a party rather than a candidate. So having party names and corflutes at the point of casting your vote is important. <\/p>\n Party logos are now also part of that. Logos are used less to help voters with limited English literacy and more to help distinguish parties with similar names on big, upper house ballot papers.<\/p>\n To register<\/a> a party you need to pay a fee, have a minimum number of members (more at national level than state level), and file an application with the relevant commission well ahead of election time. You also need to lodge a constitution. Your constitution sets your party\u2019s name, but it doesn\u2019t need to have any minimum content. It just needs to include, as one aim, a desire to run candidates.<\/p>\n Electoral commissions do not vet the accuracy of the name and platform of a party, so the \u2018voter beware\u2019 principle applies. Under electoral law, then, parties can be little more than electoral brands<\/a>. To respect freedom of association, the law doesn\u2019t say that you have to charge a minimum membership fee or let members rather than party leaders run the show. A party\u2019s rules and positions are up to the party.<\/p>\n As for names, there are some formal restrictions<\/a>. No more than six words, nothing too closely resembling an existing registered party, and nothing \u201cobscene, frivolous or vexatious\u201d. Obscene doesn\u2019t mean politically objectionable \u2013 a White Australia Party, for example, could yet<\/a> appear. <\/p>\n This means the law protects existing party names, to minimise voter confusion in the ballot box. But it also makes no attempt to guide voters on substance. A party can have a name that is sarcastic, or even completely topsy-turvy and deliberately misleading as in the \u201cFree Palestine\u201d case.<\/p>\n Voter beware<\/p>\n This all is, sadly, consistent with the absence<\/a> of \u201ctruth in politics\u201d rules in most of Australia. (Only South Australian and Australian Capital Territory elections have such rules, but then only to cover electoral advertising). This absence jars when contrasted to the rules against misleading consumers in commercial marketing.<\/p>\n Proponents of such soft-touch treatment of politics, however, warn that regulation could swallow a spider to catch a fly. In other words, they fear asking electoral commissions to judge truth or sincerity in electoral language will, at best, swamp those bodies. Or, at worst, expose them to accusations of becoming partisan overlords.<\/p>\n Those warnings may sound alarmist, in the face of blatant manipulation such as the \u201cFree Palestine\u201d registration. But drawing a line is not easy. Is the Labor Party a working person\u2019s party anymore? Are there many liberals left in the Liberal Party? Political discourse is inevitably nuanced and unfixed.<\/p>\n There is also a risk that incumbent parties will use regulation as hooks to give prominence to their own hats. Indeed, in 2021, the major parties stretched<\/a> the rules against misleadingly similar names, to try to protect the Liberal Party from the Liberal Democratic Party and the Labor Party from the Democratic Labour Party. (The High Court let them<\/a>.)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/file-20260810-50-kna5ko.png\")
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\n Diego Fidele\/AAP<\/p>\n