Family First national director Lyle Shelton. The party is calling for candidates. Photo: lyleshelton.com.au.
The ultra-conservative Family First Party has applied to register as a political party for the ACT Legislative Assembly elections on 19 October and is calling for candidates.
National Director Lyle Shelton, a former leader of the Australian Christian Lobby, said the party would campaign on a platform of religious freedom and parents’ rights.
“We aim to stand candidates who will fight for the freedom of parents to continue to educate their children in their values, not the harmful LGBTQIA+ gender-fluid and radical sexual ideologies being forced upon them by politicians doing the bidding of activists,” he said in a recent media release about the party’s intentions to contest the ACT, Queensland and federal elections.
The party would also tackle the ACT Government’s abortion policies, with Mr Shelton calling it the most anti-life government in Australia.
“With the Liberals offering no resistance to the Labor-Green government’s abortion-to-birth regime funded by taxpayers, Family First is working to ensure voters can cast an ethical pro-life vote,” Mr Shelton said in another media release earlier in the month attacking the government’s extension of access to free abortion services.
The Family First website says the party will hold an event on 11 May to organise for the election.
“With Calvary Hospital forcibly taken from the Catholic church, religious freedom under threat like never before, drugs legalised, euthanasia planned for children plus much more anti-family policy in the offing, it’s time citizens organised politically,” the website says.
Mr Shelton was managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby from 2013 to 2018 and campaigned against the No case in the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite.
He joined the Australian Conservatives and then the Christian Democrats before becoming Family First national director in 2022.
ACT Electoral Commissioner Damian Cantwell said parties wishing to register for ACT elections must submit a list of at least 100 members who are ACT electors and a copy of the party’s constitution to the Electoral Commissioner.
“Members of the public are entitled to object to an application for party registration if they consider that the party is not eligible to be registered,” he said.
Written objections must be lodged with the Electoral Commissioner by close of business on Wednesday, 8 May 2024.
Any political parties not yet registered for the ACT election have until 30 June 2024 to submit an application to the ACT Electoral Commissioner.
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