Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party (AFLP) - Application For Registration

[Shane Boese]

Another burning question for me is that if the first statement of the TFPQ Constitution states as follows:

Charter

"The Fishing Party is a political party independent of any group or groups in the community, aiming to serve the best interests Australian Recreational Fishers."

How can it also be associated with the " New Brand" being Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party? Have there also been major changes to the TFPQ Consititution to allow this to happen?


Regards Shane Boese

[Adamy]

What will happen to TFPQ at state level? Can the same executive members effectively, legally and morally run both a state and federal political parties? The Constitution KC quotes from is a State Constitution - how can a Federal Party be subordinate to a State Party as the new party will be a "TFPQ brand"? How does changing the name of a State registered party equate to Federal Registration?

Good questions Shane... I do think they ought to be addressed (I'm a little bit shocked to find myself agreeing with your questions!) However I dont know if they ought to be addressed at this "public" level - best probably addressed at the extraordinary meeting which is to be scheduled soon. For my money I'll wait until the meeting to see what they say. After all, constitutional matters are matters to be dealt with inhouse.

We'll all get to have our say then... Hey Derek... if you REALLY want to have your say - you better join up

Cheers,

Adam

[Derek Bullock]

We'll all get to have our say then... Hey Derek... if you REALLY want to have your say - you better join up

Cheers,

Adam

Adam

I have an aversion to minor political parties. Even the major ones give me the s###s.


Derek

[Gazza]

Sheesh you guys ,they still have "FISHING" 1st. in the new name

May even suck in a few of the Outdoors Party vote

I'll vote for 'em ...whatever they're called

jmo
Gazza

[FNQCairns]

Nice to think a couple of 4wd forums I have plodded around will finally have an effective body to try and represent them, that bunch have it hard are IMO more passionate than the average fisher to their colleagues (for the want of a better word) plight.

IMO Gunna be good for every man, woman and child Aust wide even if they cannot see it yet or will not see it yet.

cheers fnq

[kc]

Well…..the gloves are off in respect of the federal registration process and while the old ..Disunity is death phrase springs to mind there is also no doubt that Ausfish followers deserve to be brought into the loop. You guys have been both sounding board, and policy shapers for over 3 years now and even if many are not members, you are certainly part of the mix. After all, what you are is fishos.

TFPQ has been quiet of late as it has tried to work through the AEC registration requirements. We have been forced into a name change due to AEC rules, which set aside the name TFP for the NSW organization because they had previously contested an election using this name.
Our registration of Australian Fishing & Lifestyle Party was gazetted on July 4th and as at yesterday we received notification from the AEC that there have been objections to the name, most notably from TFP NSW.

The kicker is the grounds for objections (which are now public record).

Firstly that TFP (Nsw based) owns TFPQ members…..this is despite “our” members having dues banked into TFPQ bank account, having receipts issued from TFPQ, filling in forms to join TFP(Qld), and with the probable exception of the list of 200 or so SE Qld members given to Shane Boese, they don’t even know who our members are.

The second objection being that TFP NSW, if they are successful in registering TFP at a federal level, intend to select and stand candidates in the federal election in Qld….Hmmmm! So without any consultation from the Qld party NSW will select and campaign in our state……doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess who their senate candidate will be.

Quiet amazing that personal agendas and whiff of personal gain can so corrupt due process.

Just reconfirms our belief that the further we distance ourselves from this organization the better. No AGM’s, no voted board, no input from any other states allowed,

This should all be about what is best for the recreational fishing community and the long-term viability of the sport, but involve politics and the hint of power and it can go pear shaped.

One of the comforts of the last 3 years has been the list of achievements, which have come about as a direct result of the political influence we “fluked” at the last election. And yes, we fluked it. That said we have used this to the advantage of fishos and the industry and if this now degenerates into a drawn out “us & them” in court it is likely there will be no opportunity for fishos to vote for any “fishing type” party at the federal election….what a waste of momentum and opportunity. As recently as last Thursday we had a private meeting with Peter Garret and soon have one with Turnbull….all about advancing issues important to rec fishing. But we had a few wins along the way and if we are ultimately forced to “hang up the hat” we do so knowing we proved that political activism beats the hell out of lobbying any day!!

• Restructure assistance scheme that has brought 200 million dollars to the industry (with the potential for about another 60 to 80 million when claim backlog has been processed) when the original budget was $10M
• The Arlington pontoon issue
• The rescinding of the flawed CQU survey (after reporting the DEH to the ombudsman)
• The rescinding of mandatory criminal convictions for Green Zone infringements
• Green zone charges now treated as an infringement only with no criminal conviction to be recorded and maximum fines reduced from $220000 to a maximum of $1100 (Note this only applies to offences within the GBRMP - the other areas still have to fight their cause)
• The Government review into the GBRMPA resulting in the changes to the organisation including the new transparency code.
• The exposure of the now overturned 2/3rds rule put in place by the bureaucracy to minimise the financial impact on the Government of industry restructuring assistance.
• The 20% top up introduced by the PM for assistance with "Unforseen circumstances"
• The "Reef Grief "conference in Brisbane to alert industry of the issues.
• The participation in the last federal election that the Government acknowledge got the Howard Government the balance of power in the Senate.
• The participation in the State election that saw us hold 8% of the vote in the electorates that we participated in.
• The Meeting with Senator Abetz on the Securing our Fishing Future package
• The two visits to Cairns by senior bureaucrats on the SOFF package issue.
• On going access to senior politicians on industry related matters.
• The meeting held in Cairns on the "Securing our Fishing Future" package on behalf of the land based industry.
• Involvement by the PM on our issues including the tax and mandatory conviction issue.
• The involvement with the GSS re zoning
• Involvement with the Moreton Bay re zoning issue.

So, now that the cats out of the bag we will be a bit more communicative in respect of what is happening.
It was hoped (in vain) that this could all just go ahead and each state would respect each others “turf”, I even suggested this to TFP NSW 6 months ago but was never given the courtesy of a response.

For someone so used to “running off at the mouth”…..or should that be “keyboard” it has been frustrating having to keep MUM with so much going on and then suffer criticism for lack of communication.

I dare say boys, saddle up for a sh%$ fight.

No doubt TFP NSW will have a differing view to us and will make that known in due course. I’d like to think TFPQ can stand on its record, both for achievement and for doing this for the right reasons…albeit with the shortcomings of any volunteer organization which is constantly having to juggle time management & lack of funds while having jobs to do.
The sad part is that recreational fishing will be the loser. It will lose an effective political activist and those who look over our shoulder will watch with absolute delight the probable demise of a political rival.

PS : I wonder if they are just dirty about losing the sate of origin?

Regards

KC

[Dicko]

Just reconfirms our belief that the further we distance ourselves from this organization the better.

That was something mentioned quietly on here, even a couple of yrs ago

They struggle for even basic credibility on their own turf.

Thanks for keeping us informed

[kc]

Thanks Dicko....love the shirt.

Part of our inability to raise industry funds has been the "guilt by association" we have suffered from any link to TFP Nsw. None the less, It's been an interesting ride to this point and a "very interesting" few weeks ahead, and all the time the clock is ticking towards the election....

It will be interesting to see if the doors of Government stay open to us over this time.

KC

[Lucky_Phill]

Nuffin s##ts me................ nuffin.

What is the agenda of TFP Nsw ? I would have thought we'd all be on the same side and any advantage either one gained would be given due credit.

Nuffin s ###ts me............nuffin.

Phill

[Ausfish]

"Emergency policy decisions can be made by the Executive."

I would imagine that a name change was thought about long and hard. How can this then be considered as an emergency policy decision.

Why not just do up an e-mail and send it to all members to get there opinion. There is only 1200 members so it is very easy to have them on a mailing list and send them off an e-mail. I have over 20000 members and could E-mail them all in about 3 minutes. Only about 98% of people in Australia have access to e-mail, you can tell them when they join that the only way you communicate/keep them updated is via E-mail. You could even setup a poll on a website and have a mini referendum/poll to see what the majority of members think about certain issues, name changes, etc. Once the mailing list is setup you could keep them informed of the party activities once a month and keep the paid members informed. It seems the biggest gripe I hear from people against TFPQ is a lack of communication. On a whole though they seem happy with what has been achieved but they just don't hear from them, this seems to be one of those cases.

[kc]

Thanks Steve,

Of the 1200 members we have a current data base of about 300 who have email adresses.

The following email was sent to these 3 weeks ago and for the sake of clarity, now that the issue is no longer "in house" I have published it in full below.

The major method of communication has been our newsletters and while these have always been emailed to our member data base we have also hard mailed these twice which is a $1200 exercise and usually beyond the budget to do so.

All newsletters are available on our web site.

With respect to an online poll as to the proposed name change; public feedback is welcome but the parties binding consitution sets out the framework for policy adoption and emergency policy adoption and we still need to work through this process. The thought of using a site such as Ausfish as an "on line meeting room" to conduct TFPQ meetings, while appealing, has never been considered and would need to be adopted at an AGM after a suitable motion was tabled and discussed among members.......the issue may be one of confidentiality and the bona fides of members.
Polls however and general feedback, such as the issue of rec fishing licenses, bag limit issues and the like, discussed on Ausfish, have helped us form our views on majority opinion on fishing issues and polls clearly help do this.

I don't think it would be appropriate for me to start a poll in respect of our name change without laying out clearly the reasons and then leave the poll open for non party member disent....member disent is welcome.

Anyhow...this has a few more twists and turns to go yet but Qld may end up the same as NSW. A party with members having no say in its operation, no AGM's, a chairman and candidate for life who has never actually been elected and a reputation to rival the NSW branch....in which case..I'm goin' fishin'

Maybe we should return fire!! If anyone in NSW wants to run on our new federal registration for a senate seat against Bob Smith......Give me a tingle

Thanksfully it's all a game...not life and death..unless of course your a fish!

KC

What has The Fishing Party been up to.

While communication may have been a bit thin on the ground recently rest assured that things have been pretty full on with the Fishing Party this year.

One of the major issues that has occupied a lot of time is the re registration of your party prior to the upcoming election. Federal Government legislation deregistered all political parties that did not have a sitting elected member. This has meant that we, like all other parties without a sitting member, are going through the registration process all over again.

Rather than bore you with the bureaucratic requirements for re registration suffice it to say that our party is well underway to being re registered. With all the documentary requirements in order the Australian Electoral Commission gazetted our application on the 4th July 2007. The finalization of the registration should take about a month.

One of the new things for the Fishing Party (QLD) that will come out of this process is a name change to the “Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party” (AFLP). The background to this decision is best covered in the transcript of an interview by our Chairman, Kevin Collins for one of the regional newspapers on this issue:

“Where you can camp, fish, ride your horse are some of the issues that concern one of the country’s newest political parties.
Airlie Beach Businessman Kevin Collins is the chairman.
“This is essentially a new brand, owned by the Fishing Party Queensland which has 1200 members,” Mr. Collins said.
“We started out as wholly fishing focused, but other marginalized people who weren’t being heard started coming to us”.
Campers, four wheel drive clubs, horse riders, trail bike groups, and bushwalkers, there are so many sections of the community that are facing restrictions and access issues.”
“These are things like beachfront campgrounds being closed down to whack up high rise, and people who can’t ride horses in national parks”.
“Politicians are forgetting that people have lifestyles to enjoy as well” he said.
“Theses groups came to us in desperation, because no one was listening to them, and they weren’t getting attention from the media”.
“The party now wields some political clout federally, and claimed 30,000 votes at the last election.”
“We’ve moved mountains, whereas three years ago you couldn’t the Secretary’s tea lady to return a phone call” Mr. Collins said.
“It’s all about votes, and we are now in a position of strength rather than begging for attention. We have direct access to Senators, and we’re in regular discussions with every major political party in the country”.

[kc]

Having read Steve's post again I don't think I answered his question properly.

"How can this be an emergency policy decision".

Yes this was thought about long and hard. It was discussed at our executive meeting in February and while we knew of the deregistration process we agreed to pursue registration of TFP or TFPQ at all costs because we had invested too much time and energy in this "brand".

We have been in constant contact with the AEC since April working back and forth through ways which would allow us to move forward and as late as mid June it became clear that we could not register TFP or TFPQ at a federal level because we had never stood as TFPQ at a state election (a sad matter of 2 weeks timing and early state election).

After much sole searching we submitted a number of potential names to the AEC, none of which were ideal (to us) but the AFLP gave us the most comfort because it kept us fishing, fighting, and potentially broadened our voter base.

The AEC went through lengthy legal checks at their end to ascertain wether our new name met the legal requirements of the act and up until a few days before gazettal we still did not know if we would succeed in passing these requirements.

The "emergency" as we saw it was a choice of call a special general meeting (30 days notice) after it became clear we could definately not register, then have a vote on a new name, then lodge the paperwork (not knowing if this new name would be acceptable) and then work through the AEC process (bearing in mind we lodged the original paperwork back in March so it took the AEC 3 months to process and check member bona fides)..............or making a best judgement call within the context of constitutional ability to do so.

To whit.....work through as a "non emergency" and potentially not be even close to being registered by the election..or..make the call, get "on the board" and leave it to members to confirm or reject our decision at a special meeting or AGM.

If, as a political party, our first priority is to stand at elections and the circumstances put us in a position where-by we could not stand for an election, this, in my opinion, clearly constitutes and emergency.

Happy to stand corrected if I am wrong on this....I have been before and no doubt will be again.

If members think I'm off target at least they have a chance to give me the punt at an AGM...unlike the NSW/Federal model.

I have answered this as honestly as I can and hopefully this explains to Steve and interested others some more of the background to this...it will now be an open book because the objections and intent of the NSW organisation is now public record.

What is clearly at real risk here is the future of TFPQ as it stands and with its current structure. It would be pointless contesting an election as AFLP if we stood side by side on the ballot paper with TFP...not just because it would splinter any vote but it would radically dillute our ability to negoitate any preference arrangements and these are at the very heart of the reasons we actually do this....if we have a decent unified voter base...other parties will talk to us and modify or adopt policy which can benifit our members and the wider fishing community.

While we may bluff and bluster about actually getting elected this is really not the end game and really just a fairy tail.....our opportunities come every 3 years when we have enough votes to be important to the major parties and this will, as it did last time, result in fishing friendly policies suddenly coming out of the woodwork. If we don't have votes we are of no use and the greens become (once more) a very important part of the mix.

This whole debate will be good for the sole (pun intended ). It has been dissapointing to have to keep this important issue under wraps for so long and I am more than happy to answer and questions now that it is in the open.

To make this really clear.

If TFP NSW is successful in laying claim to TFPQ members as their members...TFPQ ceases to exist.
If TFP NSW succeeds in stopping our federal regsitration....we cease to exist at a federal level.
If TFP NSW succeeds in its federal registration and nominates and stands candidates of its own choosing as TFP candidates in Qld for the senate we cease to have any effective bargaining power and would waste to work, contacts and media built up over the last 3 years.

All in all....while emergency is a pretty dramatic word...I think it pretty well sums up the position.

On a brighter note, less time sitting here, doing this, means many, many more fish should be very, very frightened

KC

[Derek Bullock]

I am not going to further the debate with KC as he and I have had some very meaningful discussions off the forum and I am pleased to see this now all in the open.

Would be nice however for Bob Smith, Chair of TFP, who is an Ausfish member, to let everyone know why this happened.


Derek

[Adamy]

WOW!! Should I say something? or keep my big trap shut? oh well its a public forum!

I am glad that this is now out in the open and hopefully will be discussed openly. Personally I'm with KC... if TFPQ ceases to be a viable entity - I'm going fishing!! (while I still can)

It makes me wonder how TFP think they are going to man each and every booth in the state without the full support of the state based organisation! I think that perhaps... just maybe... certain individuals who may be eyeing off the perks and benefits of a senate position think enough of themselves that they think they have enough followers who will support him/them.

Just to insert a little reality into the situation in my local electorate of Bowman there is 26 polling booths, in order to be effective you need on average (or minimum) 6 people per booth throughout the day - so in 1 electorate 6 x 26 = 156 booth workers - OK lets say you can get by on half that - thats still 70plus booth workers - just for one electorate. Now multiply that by 29 electorates and the TFP candidate (whoever that might be) needs a small army of up to a couple of thousand booth workers... wheres that kind of support going to come from??

I think that TFPQ - or rather AFLP MAY have been able to generate that kind of support with KC at the helm - but an unknown and inexperienced?? I doubt it! I know that I cant support raw ambition over the sake of a just cause.

All the best KC.. for the sake of fishing I hope you win this little war, there is so much more at stake than just the political ambition and ego of a few disgruntled and self centered individuals!!

Cheers,

Adam

[Adamy]

More about what it takes to man the booths on polling day...

The one thing we learned from last election is that having booth workers is the difference between getting votes and not... especially for a smaller party. We discovered that we had virtually NO VOTES in pre poll, postal and in booths which we were unable to man.

Put simply - this means that if you have no representation on the day you just wont get the votes - so booth workers make the difference!

Since my last post I have made some additional BASIC calculations based on the returns from the 2004 election. Throughout the 28 electorates which were in operation in 2004, I did a rough count of polling booths wherein a minimum of 500 voters were in attendance - 500 being deemed a minimum figure which would be worthwhile having some form of representation (i.e. booth workers).

I found that there are 919 polling booths throughout the state - not including pre-poll locations where representation would be important. There are approximately another 500 or so booths that have less than 500 voters and yet Labor and Libs will have these manned.

So in order for any party to adequately man the required booths... you can do the math - but if you had say 3 people per booth (which in most cases would be drastically undermanned) you would need at least 2757 booth workers.

Whats the point?? Well as previously mentioned - Bob Smith and some of the other "proposed candidates" have eyes on having a QLD senator and are also Ausfish members - we know they are reading this. BUT I dont think they have quite thought through the logistics of running such a campaign and manning the necessary booths. Without booth workers - the votes wont come!

Bob and his gang of politically ambitious, starry eyed would be senator(s) should have a good hard look at themselves - do the numbers and realise that it cant be done with the numbers you/they currently have. Politics is a game of numbers... and really not too much else, unless you have the numbers - you have no game!

As KC mentioned TFPQ was never really in the game to win a senate seat... despite what some would like to think... the numbers and the political climate are against an outright win. However collecting a significant percentage of the vote and presenting that as a bargaining chip to the major parties, in order to gain concessions is/was certainly a possibility - if not high probability.

But those who have objected to the AFLP name change arent really interested in concessions and bargaining chips as much as they are in politicians perks, power, position and superannuation packages.

And THAT is the major problem, the current TFPQ ability to bargain on behalf of all Queensland fishers has been effectively diluted and thats very sad indeed!!

OK off my soapbox now - but I dont think we've heard the last of this by a very long shot!!

Adam