Australia First begins revival campaign

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

The Australia First Party is writing to its supporters requesting that they become members in order to re-register as a political party in Australia. Australia First is seen as a far-right wing party with nationalist ideals.

The party was founded in 1996 by Graeme Campbell a Member of the House of Representatives and the Australian Labor Party. In 2001, Graeme Campbell, One Nation offered to endorse him as a senate candidate in Western Australia. He failed to be elected in the October 2001 election and has remained within the One Nation Party.

The party was de-registered by the Australian Electoral Commission in 2004 for not nominating a single federal election candidate for four years.

Recently it has been alleged that the Australia First Party and its offspring the Patriotic Youth League had been involved in organising the racial violence in Sydney in December last year. The party denies this claiming "There is no way a small group of young nationalists could organise 10,000 people to gather at Cronulla Beach". However the party's website does claim that "Australian Youth And Families Should Support The Cronulla Mass Mobilisation On December 11".

Once the party has been re-registered with the Australian Electoral Commission it intends to contest local government elections in the Sutherland Shire, Marrickville, Coffs Harbour and Newcastle before running for federal parliament in 2007.

The party's NSW Secretary, Jim Saleam said "What's being done in Australia now is a situation where the European identity is being deprecated further, to the point where Europeans will disappear next century".

"Under certain circumstances that would be called a genocide, but it's not, it's called progress."

Mr Saleam was jailed for three-and-a-half years in 1991 for possessing a firearm and organising a shotgun attack on the home of the African National Congress Australian representative, Eddie Funde.

The party needs 500 correctly completed membership applications to apply to the AEC for re-registration. The registration process will then take up to 12 weeks.

Sources

"Australia First to re-register as party" — The Age, January 4, 2006

Dan Box. "Extremists move from beach to ballot box" — The Mercury, January 4, 2006

John Drew. "Patriotic Youth League of Queensland" — Internet,

"Australia First - Melbourne" — Internet,

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