Yellow Vest Australia (YVA), until 9 April 2019 known as the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA), was a minor right-wing to far-right political party in Australia. The party was founded by members of the Q Society and has been described as the political wing of Q Society. The leader was Debbie Robinson (President), who was also national president of the Q Society. On 4 September 2020, the

Australian Electoral Commission The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the independent federal agency in charge of organising, conducting and supervising federal Australian elections, by-elections and referendums. Responsibilities The AEC's main responsibility is to ...

removed the Yellow Vest Australia from the registered political party list. The party's core policy was opposition to Islam, with policies focusing on Muslim immigration such as enforcing " integration over separation", replacing

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

with an integrated multi-ethnic society and stopping public funding for "associations formed around foreign nationalities". They vowed to "stop the Islamisation of Australia". Party president Debbie Robinson has made a number of Islam-critical statements including that Islam is "a totalitarian ideology that does not separate its law from its religious entity...Slowly but surely our Judeo-Christian values, ethics and customs are being replaced" and warned that "If we continue to tolerate Islam without understanding it, Australia as a free, secular democracy will be lost". Other policies included promoting smaller government, privatising public broadcaster SBS and scaling down the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

, opposing taxpayer-funded subsidies for renewable energy, promoting advanced nuclear energy, ending

dual citizenship Multiple/dual citizenship (or multiple/dual nationality) is a legal status in which a person is concurrently regarded as a national or citizen of more than one country under the laws of those countries. Conceptually, citizenship is focused on ...

for new citizenship applicants, simplifying the tax system with less income tax and a stronger focus on

GST GST may refer to: Taxes * General sales tax * Goods and Services Tax, the name for the value-added tax in several jurisdictions: ** Goods and services tax (Australia) ** Goods and Services Tax (Canada) ** Goods and Services Tax (Hong Kong) **G ...

, improving public healthcare by more efficient cooperation with the private healthcare sector, advancing the 'natural family', and restoring

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

in Australia". However, the party focused most of its efforts on its

criticism of Islam Criticism of Islam is broadly defined as criticism of the Islamic religion in its beliefs, principles, and/or any other ideas attributed to Islam. Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early written disapprovals came fr ...

. That included the party's policy to "stop the Islamisation of Australia", and their efforts to bring to Australia noted anti-Islamic speakers such as

Geert Wilders Geert Wilders (; born 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician who has led the Party for Freedom (''Partij voor de Vrijheid'' – PVV) since he founded it in 2006. He is also the party's leader in the House of Representatives (''Tweede Kamer'' ...

Immigration

The party was focused on stopping immigration from

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

(OIC) member countries into Australia. It wanted Australia to focus its refugee efforts to preference white

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

n refugees, which the party claims have been victims of South African farm attacks. It also called for Islamic organisations, including

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

s and Islamic schools in Australia to respect the

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and

Australian law The legal system of Australia has multiple forms. It includes a written constitution, unwritten constitutional conventions, statutes, regulations, and the judicially determined common law system. Its legal institutions and traditions are substa ...

. One of their stated goals is to defend human rights and prevent any Sharia court system from being established.

Environment

The party claimed that they were "neither 'believers' nor 'deniers' when it comes to

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

". They were critical of propositions that taxing CO₂ emissions would have a noticeable effect on the global climate system. ALA has raised doubts about the competency of certain scientists and that their studies "are not based on scientific fact, but on computerised speculations and consent among special interest groups", and about climate change in general with their claim that "extreme natural events were described in Australian poetry a century before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change created hysteria about rising sea levels".

Electoral history

The Australian Liberty Alliance performed poorly at both state and federal elections it has contested. The party was registered with the

(AEC) on 28 July 2015 and was officially launched at a private function on 20 October 2015 in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

, with controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders and British anti-sharia activist

Anne Marie Waters Anne Marie Dorothy Waters (born 24 August 1977) is a far-right politician and activist in the United Kingdom. She founded and led the anti-Islam party For Britain until its dissolution in 2022. She is also the director of Sharia Watch UK, an or ...

as keynote speakers. The party had extensive connections with the international

counter-jihad movement Counter-jihad, also spelled counterjihad and known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and campaign organisations all linked by apocalyptic beli ...

. At the 2016 Australian federal election, ALA fielded 13 senate candidates and 10

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

candidates. The party received only 25,337 primary votes in total in the House of Representatives and 102,982 primary votes or 0.74% of the total in the senate. It recorded 0.66% of the senate vote in New South Wales and Victoria, 0.42% in South Australia, 0.33% in Tasmania, 1.08% in Queensland and 1.11% in Western Australia. Their best result in the House of Representatives was the

Division of Farrer The Division of Farrer is an Australian electoral division in the state of New South Wales. Geography Since 1984, federal electoral division boundaries in Australia have been determined at redistributions by a redistribution committee appoint ...

, where they polled 6.08%. The party spent $1.5 million on the campaign. On 7 April 2017, Kirralie Smith, a former candidate for the Australian Liberty Alliance and a member of the Q Society and Senate candidate for New South Wales in 2016, joined the

Australian Conservatives The Australian Conservatives was formed in July 2016 as a conservative political activist group in Australia and as a political party in February 2017. It was led by Cory Bernardi, who had been elected to the Senate for the Liberal Party, b ...

. On 1 October 2018, ALA registered as a political party in Victoria, and contested the 2018 Victorian election. Contesting only the district of Yan Yean, the party received 2.5% of the primary votes in the seat and 0.56% for the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative C ...

. Avi Yemini ran for the party as the lead candidate for the

Southern Metropolitan Region Southern Metropolitan Region is one of the eight electoral regions of Victoria, Australia, which elects five members to the Victorian Legislative Council (also referred to as the upper house) by proportional representation. The region was creat ...

in the Legislative Council, where the party received 2,075 votes or 0.48% of the total. The party has contested several by-elections where it also polled poorly. The party polled 0.85% of the vote at the 2017 Bennelong by-election, 1.39% at the

2018 Batman by-election A by-election for the House of Representatives (Australia), Australian House of Representatives seat of Division of Batman, Batman took place on 17 March 2018. The by-election was called as a result of the resignation on 1 February 2018 of David ...

, 1.18% at the

2018 Perth by-election A by-election for the Australian House of Representatives seat of Perth took place on Saturday 28 July 2018, following the resignation of incumbent Labor MP Tim Hammond. In early counting, within 90 minutes of the close of polls, the Australian ...

, and 0.20% at the 2018 Wentworth by-election. On 9 April 2019, the AEC approved the party's name change to "Yellow Vest Australia", in time to allow the party to field candidates at the

2019 Australian federal election The 2019 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 18 May 2019 to elect members of the 46th Parliament of Australia. The election had been called following the dissolution of the 45th Parliament as elected at the 2016 double dissolut ...

under the party's new name. The party nominated two candidates for the Senate for Victoria and Western Australia. Party president Debbie Robinson (who was also the president of Q Society and stood for the Senate in WA) stated that the new name was inspired by the

yellow vests movement The Yellow Vests Protests or Yellow Jackets Protests or Yellow Vests Revolution (french: Mouvement des gilets jaunes, ) are a series of Populism, populist, grassroots weekly protests in France that began on 17 November 2018. At first the protes ...

in France, claiming that the movement shared the party's representation of "disgruntled voters who are concerned about globalism, immigration (and) the cost of living". She also hoped the change would end confusion with the name of the

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...

Federal parliament

Deregistration

In 2019, the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) reviewed all registered political parties, following the review the Australian Liberty Alliance voluntarily de-registered in Victoria. The Australian Liberty Alliance cannot re-register as a political party until after the 2022 State election. In 2020, the Australian Electoral Commission removed the Yellow Vest Australia from the registered political party list.

Notes

References

External links

Archived ALA website
{{Defunct Australian political parties 2015 establishments in Australia Anti-Islam political parties National conservative parties Anti-Islam sentiment in Australia Counter-jihad Political parties established in 2015 Defunct far right political parties in Australia Right-wing populist parties Right-wing politics in Australia Right-wing parties Defunct conservative parties Conservative parties in Australia Defunct nationalist parties 2020 disestablishments in Australia Political parties disestablished in 2020 Australian nationalist parties