Australian Citizens Party

The original CEC was established in 1988 by local residents of the Kingaroy region of Queensland. CEC candidate Trevor Perrett won the 1988 Barambah state by-election in Queensland, after former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen resigned from State Parliament in 1987. However, Perrett switched to the National Party in December 1988.[6] Members of the Australian League of Rights, an extreme right-wing group led by Eric Butler, tried unsuccessfully to take over the new party.[7] Its purpose was to lobby for binding voter-initiated referenda.[8][9]

By 1989, the CEC leadership was under the influence of the Lyndon LaRouche movement.[7] By 1992, the CEC identified itself as the Australian branch of the broad international LaRouche movement. National Secretary Craig Isherwood moved the headquarters from rural Queensland to a Melbourne suburb, with direct communications links to LaRouche's US headquarters established.[8]

In 1996, then-Liberal Party MP Ken Aldred, was disendorsed by the Liberal Party after using parliamentary privilege to make allegations of involvement in espionage and drug trafficking against a prominent Jewish lawyer and a senior foreign affairs official, using documents that were later found to be forged, supplied to him by the CEC.[10][7][11]

In the mid-2000s, the party found support from Muslim groups opposed to the detention of suspected terrorists by the United States at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[12][13] In 2004, the CEC received the largest contribution of any political party, $862,000 from a central Queensland cattle farmer and former CEC candidate named Ray Gillham.[14][15]

The CEC leader is National Secretary and National Treasurer Craig Isherwood of Melbourne, who has been an election candidate for the party numerous times. CEC was registered as a political party by the Australian Electoral Commission on 27 June 1997 and deregistered on 27 December 2006.[16] The party was re-registered on 4 September 2007.[17] The NSW Division of CEC was registered on 5 August 2004 and deregistered on 27 December 2006.[18]

For the 2022 Australian Federal Election, Australian Citizens Party's main policies are "not intended to be all-encompassing, but expresses the priority issues the Citizens Party has identified as urgent to be addressed at this point in time." [19]

1. A public post office “people’s bank"

"Break the oligopoly of the Big Four banks, which are arrogantly (mindlessly) closing branches, debanking lawful businesses, and reducing access to and availability of cash. We MUST establish the Commonwealth Postal Savings Bank (CPSB). Using post offices as branches (and thus ensuring the viability of Australia Post and its licensed post offices), the CPSB will guarantee full, low-cost banking services, deposit security, and access to cash for all Australian individuals, businesses, and communities."

2. A national infrastructure bank to finance visionary, nation-building infrastructure

"Establish a national infrastructure bank from which local, state, and federal governments can borrow for infrastructure projects that build Australia and create jobs, ending Australia’s reliance on foreign borrowing, “asset-recycling” privatisation, and expensive public-private partnerships (PPPs). The infrastructure bank will enable Australia to again embark on transformative, nation-building water, power and transportation infrastructure projects, in the spirit of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, which will develop and support industries and economic opportunities, and spark a population boom, in regional Australia. Priority projects include the Bradfield water diversion scheme in North Queensland, the Iron Boomerang railway between Queensland and Western Australia, and high-speed rail between the state capitals. Australians will be able to invest their superannuation and retirement savings in the capital of the infrastructure and development banks, which investments will be fully guaranteed by the government."

3. A National development bank to expand manufacturing and agricultural industries

"Establish a national development bank to provide long-term, low-interest credit on flexible terms for Australian manufacturing and agricultural industries. To revive manufacturing, the development bank will back local innovations that too often are lost offshore, so they are developed and manufactured domestically. For agriculture, it will support family farms through the ups and downs of seasons and markets and with their investment needs. The development bank will be a repository of financial, industrial, and trade expertise and advice for the government and industries. Expanding manufacturing and agricultural industries will require a concerted upgrade of skills training and technical education services."

4. Massively expand resources for healthcare services

"Mobilise a dramatic increase in clinical staff (paramedics, nurses and doctors), equipment and technology, and beds and hospitals, to address the crisis besetting every aspect of the public healthcare system—ambulance services, public hospitals, regional health care, mental health, disability services, and aged care. Due to decades of ideologically driven under-resourcing, profiteering, and outsourcing to management consultants, Australia’s public healthcare system was overwhelmed even before the COVID-19 pandemic, but instead of recognising the pandemic as a wake-up call to permanently expand healthcare resources, to both meet the public health challenge and establish a much higher standard of healthcare delivery for all Australians into the future, both Federal and State governments have overseen woefully inadequate responses, defaulting to short-term, band-aid measures and resorting to extreme restrictions and mandates as a substitute for properly resourcing public health care."

5. No "bail-in" of bank deposites

"Immediately amend the Banking Act 1959 to remove the 2018 “conversion and write-off” provision applying to “any other instruments” that could be used to seize the savings deposits of Australians to prop up failing banks. While the Australian government denies this power could be used to bail in savings deposits, it is committed to implementing the bail-in policy of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, which explicitly does include deposits; the proposed amendment would remove all doubt."

6. Glass-Steagall banking separation

"Enact the Citizens Party’s Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill, to mandate a full separation of banks with deposits from speculative investment banks and all other financial services. The bill is modelled on the USA’s successful Glass-Steagall Act 1933, which protected Americans from financial crises for 66 years, until its ill-fated repeal in 1999 led to the explosion of speculation that caused the 2008 global financial crisis. A Glass-Steagall bank separation will give Australians confidence in the security of the banking system, divert the banks away from financial speculation and back to serving the real economy, and end the conflicts of interests resulting from so-called “vertical integration” of banking with insurance, stock broking, funds management, and superannuation. The Separation of Banks Bill will also make the bank regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), accountable to Parliament rather than the Bank for International Settlements."

7. Overhaul corporate regulator ASIC into a feared law-enforcement agency

"End Australia’s shameful reputation as a paradise for white collar criminals by overhauling the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) into an aggressive law-enforcement agency feared by the banks. This requires replacing ASIC’s hands-off caveat emptor philosophy—“let the buyer beware”—which allowed financial misconduct to flourish, with an emphasis on “seller beware”, enforced by criminal prosecutions of financial predators instead of token fines paid by bank shareholders."

8. Full compensation for financial victims

"Compel the banks and other financial institutions to fully compensate all of their financial victims, including the tens of thousands of cases from the decades before the 2018 banking royal commission. These victims deserve justice, not to have their cases swept under the carpet. Given that many victims have languished in ruin for years, or like the elderly victims of Sterling First are extremely vulnerable, the government should expedite justice by paying the compensation in advance and recouping the funds from the financial institutions through levies."

9. No war with China

"End the dangerous “drums of war” rhetoric pushing Australia to join the USA and UK in confronting China, and prioritise diplomacy to resolve tensions respectfully, starting with reiterating the One China policy that Australia has held since 1972. Renounce any more involvement in disastrous regime-change wars, and reform the war powers to replace the prime minister’s power to unilaterally declare war with a vote by Parliament."

10. Independent foreign policy

"End Australia’s foreign policy subservience to the USA and UK by asserting an independent foreign policy in Australia’s national interest. A truly independent Australia would oppose disastrous regime-change wars and the dangerous Anglo-American strategic escalation against China and Russia; withdraw from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership and demand the UK and USA release Australian journalist Julian Assange; and prioritise developing good relations and economic cooperation with the nations in our region, including by joining our regional neighbours and most of the rest of the world in participating in the Belt and Road Initiative to raise global living standards through infrastructure investments (which the Morrison government initially enthusiastically welcomed before siding with the USA’s attacks on BRI as a threat)."

11. Justice for refugees

"Finally end Australia’s institutional mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees, by immediately releasing those in long-term, indefinite detention. Australia should accept New Zealand’s offer to assist in settling refugees; release the 33 young men who have languished in Melbourne’s Park Hotel for the last four out of their nine years of indefinite detention, simply for arriving by boat; and allow the Murugappan family to return to their home in Biloela."

12. A moratorium on home and farm foreclosures

"Protect homeowners and farmers from mass evictions in a housing market crash with a foreclosure moratorium that keeps families in their homes while the government directs a reorganisation of failing banks and write-downs of mortgage debt. Through their policies that encouraged the banks to concentrate their lending on mortgages at the expense of the rest of the economy, the government, Reserve Bank, and APRA inflated house prices into a speculative bubble, which they have continued to prop up, making housing unaffordable for young families. It is inevitable that this bubble will crash, but this will make housing affordable again, and the foreclosure moratorium will enable the government to manage the crash in an orderly way to ensure nobody loses their family home or farm, and avert a banking meltdown."

13. Invest in national food security

"Prioritise policies that support Australia’s family farmers who, unlike corporate agribusinesses, guarantee the nation’s food security. These policies include: cheap flexible credit from a national development bank; parity pricing that guarantees cost of production; expanded domestic production of farm inputs, including fertilizer and fuel (local refining and storage); tariff protection from free trade dumping; sensible land clearing and fuel reduction burning for fire protection; end Murray-Darling Basin water speculation to return water to farms; regional infrastructure to support industries and towns; and encourage population growth in regional Australia to expand the permanent agricultural labour force."

14. Repeal the prohibition on nuclear power

"Amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to repeal its prohibition on nuclear power generation, by which Australia is the only country in the world that denies itself the use of not only one of the major energy technologies, but one which the EU has classified as “green energy” because it is emissions-free. The energy-density of nuclear fuel makes nuclear power the most efficient and reliable energy source in the world, and in recent decades great progress has been achieved in making nuclear reactors exceedingly safe, and in reprocessing nuclear waste. Australia should capitalise on having one third of the world’s known uranium reserves and plentiful thorium reserves to develop next-generation nuclear energy technologies that are safe, clean, affordable, and reliable."

15. A 0.1% tax on financial speculation

"Tax $1 in every $1,000 of turnover in stocks, bonds, currency exchange transactions, and both exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives. This would be a tiny charge on retirees selling long-term share investments, but a heavy burden on high-frequency traders and derivatives gamblers."

The ACP has lobbied for "the establishment of a National Bank and State Banks to provide loans at 2% or less to agriculture (family farms), industry and for infrastructure development", launching a petition in 2002 to drive support with a full page advertisement in The Australian newspaper.[20] In early 2008 the CEC started campaigning for a "Bank Homeowners Protection Bill of 2008", calling for legislation in the spirit of the Australian moratorium laws enacted in the 1920s and 1930s.[21]

The party follows the LaRouche line of climate change denial towards the theory of anthropogenic global warming, referring to fears of global warming as "Hitler-Nazi race science".[22] The party espouses the claim that the Port Arthur massacre, in which Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and injured 37 others, was instigated by mental health institute the Tavistock Institute on the orders of the royal family,[23] and that the Australian Liberal Party was founded by pro-Hitler fascists.[24]

The CEC's policies have included introducing a national Glass-Steagall Act to "break up the banks", establishing a national bank, introducing a moratorium on home & farm foreclosures, constructing high speed rail and the Bradfield Scheme, joining China's Belt and Road Initiative, shutting down Pine Gap and opposing the existence of climate change among others.[25]

The Anti-Defamation Commission of the Australian branch of B'nai B'rith (an international Jewish organisation) has published a Briefing Paper with details of the CEC's alleged antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-Aboriginal and racist underpinnings. The document cites CEC publications and quotes former CEC members.[7] The CEC in turn has published a response to the ADC's accusations and described the ADC "as a front for Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council, the ruling body of the British Commonwealth".[26] This allegation, that there is a link between the ADC and the alleged power of the Privy Council, has been attributed to the fact that Sir Zelman Cowen, a former Governor-General of Australia and a member of the Privy Council, was a member of the ADC's board of advisors.

Former members of the CEC and families of current members have accused the group of "brainwashing" members and engaging in campaigns involving "dirty tricks".[27] For example, former CEC staffer Donald Veitch has claimed that new recruits undergo "deprogramming sessions" and that recruits are probed for sexual peccadilloes. Veitch has stated: "The mind control operations commenced by Lyndon LaRouche in the USA in the mid-1970s are still being practised today within his movement in Australia".[28]

The Australian Citizens party engages in climate change denial.[29]

CEC members demonstrate outside an election meeting organised by the Australian Jewish News in Melbourne, September 2004. Aaron Isherwood (second from right) was the CEC candidate in the seat of Melbourne Ports at the 2004 federal election.

Despite running in "almost every election of the past two decades", in no election has the CEC ever garnered more than 2% of the vote.[30]

At the 2007 federal election, the CEC's previous form continued. Its first preference votes in the lower house was 27,879 (0.22%), and 8,677 (0.07%) in the upper house, both results were 0.14% down from 2004.[31]

At the 2016 federal election, CEC fielded senate candidates in every state and the Northern Territory and seven candidates for seats in the House of Representatives.[32] Nationally, the party received 5,175 votes (0.04%) in the lower house and 9,850 votes (0.07%) in the upper house.[33]

• Category:Australian Citizens Party politicians
• Political parties in Australia

• Official website
• B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission's briefing paper on the CEC (PDF)
• Retort to the Anti-Defamation Council by CEC (PDF)