Clive Palmer has lost his bid to re-register his United Australia Party. Photo: Wiki.
Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party will not be contesting any seats in this year’s federal election following a High Court ruling meaning the party won’t be re-registered in time.
Instead, any of its candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate will have to be unidentified on ballot papers as far as party affiliation is concerned.
The UAP was voluntarily deregistered after the 2022 federal election.
The law does not allow for re-registering within the same electoral cycle, but Mr Palmer, UAP Senator Ralph Babet and the party’s national director, Neil Favager, launched a High Court challenge when they were not allowed to re-register the party last year.
The court, however, ruled the law valid and ordered the UAP plaintiffs to pay costs. No reasons for the decision have been published yet.
Mr Palmer argued that refusing the UAP name and logo on ballot papers infringed on freedom of political speech and the right of the people to choose candidates directly.
UAP candidates would be at an unfair advantage and less effective at campaigning.
The party’s lawyers stated in their submission: “In a system of compulsory voting, party affiliation is of particular importance in providing guidance as to how to vote.”
The Commonwealth’s argument noted the law applied only to those parties that voluntarily chose to deregister themselves.
Commonwealth lawyers suggested that one reason the UAP chose to deregister was to avoid the responsibility of being transparent about disclosing donations to the party.
Senator Ralph Babet is the UAP’s sole federally elected representative. Photo: UAP.
Senator Babet is a Victorian senator and was the UAP’s only successful candidate at the last federal election.
His six-year term means he will not be up for re-election in this year’s federal poll.
Senator Babet is regarded as a far-right populist politician and a longtime vocal supporter of US President Donald Trump.
He was born on the remote Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, part of the Republic of Mauritius, and spoke French as his first language.
He migrated with his family to Australia in 1990 when he was seven years old, and he became an Australian citizen in 1993.
Babet renounced his Mauritian citizenship in March 2022.
Before his election as a UAP candidate, he was on the committee of the Australian Sovereignty Party in 2010.
That party never contested any elections.
Billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer first formed the Palmer United Party in April 2013. He won a seat for himself that year in the Federal Parliament as the Member for Fairfax, located in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
He sat as a federal MP for one term.
Mr Palmer formally deregistered the party on 5 May 2017 and revived it in 2018 as the United Australia Party.
He promised to run UAP candidates in all 151 House of Representatives seats and run himself as a Senate candidate in the 2019 election.
His wealth was estimated at $22.75 billion in the 2024 AFR Rich list, making him Australia’s sixth richest person.
Mr Palmer listed one of his hobbies as litigation in Who’s Who.
All UAP candidates failed to win seats at that election, despite extensive advertising and millions of dollars of Mr Palmer’s own funds diverted to the campaign.
In the 2022 federal election, after contesting every seat with a reported combined campaign spend of more than $100 million, the UAP won only one Senate seat, now held by Senator Babet.
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