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Australian Reform Party
Australian Reform Society Inc.
Abbreviation
  • ARP
  • Reform
FoundersTed Drane
Founded25 May 1996; 28 years ago (25 May 1996)
Registered27 June 1997; 27 years ago (27 June 1997)[1]
DissolvedEarly 2019; 6 years ago (2019)
Headquarters6 Kent Road
Narre Warren, Victoria[2]
Membership6,000[3]
Political positionRight-wing to far-right[4][5]
Slogan"Accountable Representation for the People"[6]
House of Representatives
1 / 148
(1996)
Website
reform.org.au

The Australian Reform Party (ARP) was an Australian political party founded in 1996 and based in Victoria, focusing on gun rights following the Port Arthur massacre.[7] It was registered in 1997 with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), and was also registered at the state level in Victoria and Western Australia.[8][9]

Federal MP Graeme Campbell was briefly a member of the party after it merged with his newly-formed Australia First Party and became known as the Australia First Reform Party (AFRP), but the parties split after around one week.[10]

The party was deregistered by the AEC in 2002, but remained active online with a website that was updated until early 2019.[11]

History

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The ARP was founded on 25 May 1996 as the Australian Reform Movement (ARM), one month after the Port Arthur massacre which led to the federal Howard government introducing significant changes to Australia's gun laws.[12][13] Its founder was Ted Drane, the president of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA).[14][15] Shortly after its formation, federal MP Graeme Campbell, a former member of the Australian Labor Party, formed the Australia First Party (AFP) after being re-elected as an independent at the federal election in March 1996.[16][17]

In June 1996, Drane and Campbell began discussions about merging their parties.[18][19] Drane favoured the "Australian Reform" name (taking inspiration for the name from the Reform Party of Canada), while Campbell preferred "Australia First".[10][20] On 1 July 1996, the first branch of the new party was formed at the Rowville Football Club with the combined name "Australia First Reform Party" (AFRP).[7][21][22]

On 5 July 1996, a day before Drane was supposed to meet with Campbell in Canberra to discuss the new party, Drane withdrew after discovering that the Australian League of Rights planned to associate with the AFRP.[23][24] The ARP applied for registration with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 31 July 1996, while Campbell returned to his own party.[2][25]

At meeting of the ARP on 12 October 1996, which was scheduled to be addressed by independent MP Pauline Hanson, had to be moved from the University of Melbourne to a secret venue to avoid a protest by students and other groups.[26][27][28] Drane later criticised Hanson after she formed her own political party in 1997, saying she was "unprofessional" and may have squandered a chance to unite the right in Australia.[29][30][31]

The first election contested by the ARP was the 1997 Gippsland West state by-election in Victoria, which saw the party finish third with 9.7% of the vote.[32][33]

In September 1998, artist Pro Hart donated a painting to ARP, which depicted prime minister John Howard wearing a swastika and giving a Nazi salute.[34]

The ARP was deregistered by the AEC on 18 January 2002.[35][36] It remained active online until shortly after the 2018 Victorian state election, when its website stopped updating.[37][38]

References

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  1. ^ "Notice of registration". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. 9 July 1997. p. 1880. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  2. ^ a b "Register of Political Parties". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. 31 July 1996. p. 2204. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  3. ^ "AUSTRALIAN REFORM PARTY NEWSLETTER". Australian Reform Party. Retrieved 4 June 2004.
  4. ^ Aiken, Bob; Poulsen, Ron (9 December 1996). "Protests Grow As Debate Over Racist Campaign Heats Up In Australia". The Militant. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  5. ^ Boyle, Peter (14 May 1997). "Hanson, racism and the far right". Green Left. Archived from the original on 3 March 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  6. ^ Dean, Ian (17 August 2005). "AUSTRALIAN REFORM PARTY NEWSLETTER". Australian Reform Party. Retrieved 7 February 2006.
  7. ^ a b Chapman, Simon (1998). "Over Our Dead Bodies: Port Arthur and Australia's fight for gun control" (PDF). Sydney Open Library. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 October 2024. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
  8. ^ Green, Antony (5 November 2014). "A Record 21 Parties Registered to Contest the 2014 Victorian Election". ABC News. Archived from the original on 26 November 2019. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  9. ^ "1997-1998 Annual Returns". Western Australian Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 22 October 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  10. ^ a b Dodd, Andrew (21 July 1996). "Stalking Ted". ABC Listen. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  11. ^ "UnRegistered Australian Political Parties". Asia Pacific Political Resource. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  12. ^ Fitzpatrick, Aidyn (28 May 1996). "Far right takes aim at gun laws". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 22 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  13. ^ Lorimer, Doug (3 July 1996). "The politics of the gun laws debate". Green Left. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  14. ^ Grattan, Michelle; Farouque, Farah (11 May 1996). "National ban on weapons". The Age. Archived from the original on 5 January 2025. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  15. ^ Browne, Bill (March 2019). "Point blank: Political strategies of Australia's gun lobby" (PDF). The Australia Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 October 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  16. ^ Freedman, Bernard (10 May 1996). "Graeme Campbell is back". Australian Jewish News. p. 8. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  17. ^ "THE EIGHT CORE POLICIES OF THE AUSTRALIA FIRST PARTY". Australia First Party. Retrieved 12 June 2007. The Australia First Party emerged in mid-1996
  18. ^ Boswell, Ron (27 June 1996). "Australian Sporting Shooters Association" (PDF). Parliament of Australia. p. 80. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 February 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  19. ^ "Taking on the far-right". Green Left. 3 July 1996. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  20. ^ Freedman, Bernard (7 June 1996). "Guns, politics — and Graeme Campbell". Australian Jewish News. p. 6. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  21. ^ Freedman, Bernard (5 July 1996). "Pressure on Howard to probe LaRouche". Australian Jewish News. p. 30. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  22. ^ Gun Control : what Australia got right (and wrong), UNSW Press LTD, 2019, ISBN 978-1-74224-905-6
  23. ^ Freedman, Bernard (12 July 1996). "Document on immigration cuts leaked". Australian Jewish News. p. 20. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  24. ^ Greason, David (26 July 1996). "How shooters averted League of Rights coup". Australian Jewish News. p. 6. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  25. ^ "Davis unlikely to win seat". Port Lincoln Times. 6 October 1998. p. 3. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  26. ^ Dixon, Norm (30 July 1997). "Ratbags in the ranks: Hanson, the Coalition and the Far Right". hartford-hwp.com. Green Left. Archived from the original on 10 December 2023. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  27. ^ Lee Ack, Tess (12 July 2016). "How we stopped Pauline Hanson last time". Marxist Left Review. Archived from the original on 15 August 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  28. ^ Dorling, Philip (May 2017). "Still Anti-Asian? Anti-Chinese? One Nation policies on Asian immigration and multiculturalism" (PDF). The Australia Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 November 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  29. ^ Boyle, Peter (30 April 1997). "Who is behind Pauline Hanson's racist offensive?". Green Left. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  30. ^ "The Australian Reform Party is a New Far-Right Political Group in Australia". Reason in Revolt. Archived from the original on 21 June 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  31. ^ "THE AUSTRALIAN REFORM PARTY 15 A NEW FAR-RIGHT POLITICAL GROUP IN AUSTRALIA" (PDF). Reason in Revolt. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 July 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  32. ^ Boreham, Gareth (31 January 1997). "Grassroots candidate fights for people". go.gale.com. The Age. Archived from the original on 21 January 2025. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
  33. ^ "Gippsland West District 1997 By-Election Results". Victorian Electoral Commission. 1 February 1997. Retrieved 2 March 2001.
  34. ^ "SOLD AT AUCTION". Australian Jewish News. 19 March 1999. p. 2. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  35. ^ "Register of Political Parties". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. 30 January 2002. p. 364. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  36. ^ "Australian Reform Party". Australian Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 16 January 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
  37. ^ "Vote Independant in the upcoming Victorian State Election!". Australian Reform Party. 19 November 2002. Retrieved 25 December 2002.
  38. ^ "News Flash". Australian Reform Party. Archived from the original on 15 October 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
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