Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] Indeed, elections don't prevent anybody from nominating and from standing. They can stand as an independent—that is an option open to all Australians. But what we seek to ensure is that where people constitute a political party it has a genuine underpinning to it, that it is not just an independent, and that it has a base, a body of support and a set of beliefs commonly adhered to by its members. That is the logical, commonsense test that Australians apply when they are thinking about what political parties are, and that is all that these modest reforms seek to do. They ensure that we have that test in place in ways that meet the expectations of the Australian people. They expect political parties to be fair dinkum parties and the names of those parties to be clearly distinguished from one another, reflecting their individual identities.