The No Mandatory Vaccination Party is a political party registered in the Australian state of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

History

The No Mandatory Vaccination Party was registered in January 2021 in preparation for the

2021 Western Australian state election 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

. Cameron Tinley, the party's founder, had previously been fired from his job as a teacher at

Atwell College Atwell College is an independent public secondary school in the southern Perth suburb of Atwell, Western Australia. Overview Atwell College achieved Independent Public School status in 2011. The college's first principal was Steven Crake; he ...

for his refusal to get vaccinated for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The party won no seats at the election, but was a part of a small party alliance that used

Group Voting Tickets A group voting ticket (GVT) is a shortcut for voters in a preferential voting system, where a voter can indicate support for a list of candidates instead of marking preferences for individual candidates. For multi-member electoral divisions with si ...

to get each other elected, resulting in the election of the Legalise Cannabis and

Daylight Saving Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

parties to the state's Legislative Council despite neither party earning more than 2% of the vote. The No Mandatory Vaccination Party themselves almost won a seat in the

South Metropolitan Region The South Metropolitan Region is a multi-member electoral region of the Western Australian Legislative Council, located in the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. It was created by the ''Acts Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 1987'', an ...

, despite earning only 0.94% of the primary vote; they were only defeated due to the state

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

preferencing the Greens over any of the 19 smaller parties part of the alliance. In 2022, the party was de-registered due to a swathe of fake applications having inflated the party's members past the required 1500 members needed to be recognised by the federal government, with many of the fake applications originating from private school students aiming to

troll A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

the party. Tinley claimed that the party had "close to 3000" members before being audited by the government, and later that the party's website had been hacked resulting in the loss of the details of hundreds of members. The failure to acquire enough members before the registration deadline led to the party's members running nameless at the 2022 federal election.

Members

The only two known members of the party are founder Cameron Tinley and Tricia Ayre, who are listed as a high school teacher and primary school teacher respectively. They are both running for seats representing Western Australia in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

at the 2022 federal election. The party initially planned to contest every Senate seat and

Lower House A lower house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has co ...

electorate, but found their potential candidates instead choosing to join the

United Australia Party The United Australia Party (UAP) was an Australian political party that was founded in 1931 and dissolved in 1945. The party won four federal elections in that time, usually governing in coalition with the Country Party. It provided two prim ...

Policies

The policies of the party exclusively concern Western Australian laws surrounding the administration of

vaccines A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity The adaptive immune system, also known as the acquired immune system, is a subsystem of the immune system that is composed of specialized, systemic cells and pro ...

. Their site lists their policies as the following: * Repealing Section 158 of the state's Public Health Act 2016. * Making it illegal for businesses or companies to require employees to receive vaccination. * Removing compulsory vaccination requirements for children to attend school. * Reintroducing the right to exercise

conscientious objection A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to objecti ...

to vaccinations. Tinley states that despite his party's policies being in line with that of

anti-vaccination Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...

movements, not all members and candidates are anti-vaccine, stating that the party was “not restricting our candidates from being vaccinated."

References

2021 establishments in Australia Political parties established in 2021 Political parties in Western Australia Organizations established for the COVID-19 pandemic Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on politics Anti-vaccination organizations {{Australia-party-stub