Over the last week or two there has been much attention given to the Australian Democrats Senators finishing their last term in office. Most of the reporting of this event has been characterised by the death of the Democrats as a political party. While it is true that for the next three years, there will be not be any Democrats in Federal Parliament, it is not accurate to conclude from this that the party is dead!
I know this because I am a current and active member of the Democrats. Officially the party has not disbanded in any way. We are still holding internal meetings, still discussing policy and still are planning to campaign in upcoming by elections. Its also important to realise that we still have a sitting member in parliament in South Australia-Sandra Kanck.
We certainly acknowledge that the party is down at the moment, but we firmly believe that the party is not out! We are still attracting new members, particularly young members. In fact the youth wing of the parliament, YADS, is quite strong. If you check out our website you'll see that we have a lot of activity and discussions going on on our forum and that we are well and truly alive. We are also holding our annul YADS Conference in Adelaide in a few weeks, where will be discussing the future of the party. None of this would be happening if as the media continually says, we are dead!
So to repeat, we are not dead! We are working hard at the moment to remind the Australian public that we are still the party who will promote fair and inclusive democracy, will stick to our principles of defending human rights and social justice and will keep those Bastards Honest!!
If anyone out there is not impressed by the politics of the major parties, doesn't quite feel that the narrow politics of the Greens and Family First suit them, I would encourage them to not believe everything that is read and heard and to check out the Australian Democrats. You might just find a party that has a set of principles and a broad set of policies that are line with your own beliefs and values!
www.yads.org.au
Young Australian Democrats
www.democrats.org.au
Australian Democrats
