Public meeting in Australia: Election ban on the SEP: An attack on democratic rights

Socialist Equality Party (Australia)
4 March 2025

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Australia is holding an important public meeting on March 19 entitled “Election ban on the SEP: An attack on democratic rights.” The meeting will be an in-person event in Sydney and live-streamed online. It is being held to discuss, explain and build the SEP’s challenge of the rejection of the party’s registration by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the body that oversees federal elections.

WHEN: 7 p.m. (AEDT) Wednesday, March 19
WHERE: Lansdowne Rooms 1 & 2, Bankstown Library, 80 Rickard Rd, Bankstown, NSW

Reserve your seat now!
For those unable to attend in person, the event will also be live-streamed via Zoom.

Read our statement against the decision here.

The AEC’s ruling against the SEP party registration submission means that our party name will be banned from appearing on the ballot in the upcoming federal election. This decision is an outrageous attack on the democratic rights of the SEP and all working people. It is part of a broader assault on political opposition, to prevent those searching for answers to the major historical questions facing mankind today from accessing a socialist alternative to capitalism.

The election is being held as all the mechanisms, agreements, pacts and treaties—political, economic and military, that were the basis of the post-World War Two period are disintegrating. Countries that were allies can, overnight, become enemies and war is the answer for every government. There is no anti-war faction of the ruling class in any country, including Australia.

The SEP applied for electoral registration in September last year, submitting a list of more than 1,500 verified members, exceeding the legal requirement. However, the AEC rejected the application because, they assert, a small, randomly selected sample of members did not verify membership, although no evidence has been provided. The SEP has been denied the ability to examine or challenge the AEC’s claims, including its methodology, making the process entirely opaque and arbitrary.

This attack on the SEP stems directly from anti-democratic electoral laws passed in 2021, which tripled the membership requirement for party registration from 500 to 1,500. These laws were rammed through parliament, with support from both the Labor and the Liberal parties, to shut out smaller parties, particularly socialist and left-wing organisations, from the electoral process.

The AEC’s decision must be seen in the context of a deepening crisis of the two-party system and the entire political establishment. Support for the Albanese Labor government has plunged to historic lows—down to just 25 percent in some polls—without any corresponding swing to the Coalition.

This has raised the spectre of what the corporate media has dubbed a “nightmare scenario” in the upcoming 2025 federal elections, which must be held by May 17—a highly unstable minority government, whether Labor or Liberal, clinging to power through backroom deals with the Greens and various independents.

Such a fragile regime would face escalating political discontent, fuelled by mounting social inequality, the drive to war, and the global turbulence triggered by the fascistic Trump administration in the United States. The electoral ban on the SEP is a pre-emptive strike aimed at suppressing socialist opposition amid this growing turmoil.

This is not an isolated case but part of an escalating assault on fundamental democratic rights. Around the world, capitalist governments are moving toward authoritarian rule, as they prepare for war and seek to suppress growing opposition to social inequality.

The SEP will not accept this anti-democratic attack. The electoral ban is the outcome of deliberate measures by the political establishment to entrench the two-party system and block any challenge to capitalist rule. The SEP is launching a campaign to overturn the AEC’s decision and expose the broader erosion of political freedoms, which is bound up with escalating social inequality, expanding military preparations, and deepening attacks on workers’ conditions.

Notwithstanding the outcome of the challenge, the SEP will fight in the upcoming 2025 federal elections, advancing a socialist program against war, austerity and the assault on democratic rights. This public meeting will detail this program, expose the fraudulent character of the AEC’s ruling, outline the political context of the anti-democratic electoral laws, and discuss the necessity of building a socialist movement to defend workers’ rights.

Meeting Details:
WHEN: 7 p.m. (AEDT) Wednesday, March 19
WHERE: Lansdowne Rooms 1 & 2, Bankstown Library, 80 Rickard Rd, Bankstown, NSW

Reserve your seat now!
For those unable to attend in person, the event will also be live-streamed via Zoom.

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