Six years after the forming of its new national political party, “Family First” is now set to contest the 2011 state election in New South Wales.
NSW State Director of Family First Phil Lamb announced that his party has been declared a “Registered Political Party” by the NSW Electoral Commission today. The announcement comes not a day too soon. The 1st March is set down as a date under state legislative requirements as the very last day by which all new or existing political parties need to be registered to be eligible to contest the next state election in March 2011.
In just six years, Family First has grown nationally to have four members sitting in Parliaments across Australia, including the high-profile Australian Senator Steve Fielding and now Dr Gordon Moyes in the NSW Upper House. Former National President of Family First Andrew Evans OAM described Dr Moyes as an outstanding Member of the NSW Parliament who enjoys the respect and admiration of all sectors of the community, and all sides of the parliament. “He is without question the best orator in the NSW Upper House.”
“Family First”, Phil Lamb stated, “is a middle of the road, commonsense conservative party whose platform is the family values of the vast majority of Australians. Family First does bring together different community and religious groups who share exactly the same family values.”
Phil Lamb, when asked to accept Family First’s top job as State Director last November, stated: “We then began recruiting members leaving us only six weeks to sign them up before submitting our application. This was at a time when Christmas was approaching, and then in the new year, many people were on holidays. It has been an absolutely exceptional response by NSW residents indicating a ready-made demand in the market for a new political party whose sole objective is to put NSW families first when considering all legislation considered by the NSW Parliament.”
“NSW has the toughest requirements of any state in Australia to register a political party. After the table-cloth ballot paper in the 1999 NSW Election, the NSW Government introduced tough legislation to stop new political parties being registered unless they met several tests. The first test was a verified party membership requirement of 750 signed-up members who filled out an Electoral Commission form. Family First easily met this requirement, by supplying to the Electoral Commission nearly 1000 members”, Mr Lamb said.
The Electoral Commissioner was then given the discretion to test whether those members were bona-fide members. Again, Family First met this requirement. Today, the NSW Electoral Commission advised Mr Lamb of the news that Family First has now been declared a Registered Political Party in NSW.
Phil Lamb added, “Our first task now will be to recruit candidates to run for the House of Representatives seats for Family First in the 2010 Federal Election, and then for Lower House Seats in the 2011 NSW State Election.”
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC