Clive deregisters UAP, ‘doesn’t need the expense’ despite no cost

Clive Palmer has blamed ongoing costs for deregistering his United Australia Party, even though ongoing registration costs nothing.

Clive Palmer, one of Australia’s richest people, has deregistered his political party, claiming he did not want the expense of maintaining its registration.

It is despite having a sitting senator in the Parliament.

He says he will re-register the party prior to the next federal election so he can get the party’s name on the ballot paper, but does not intend to run himself.

The Australian Electoral Commission has published a notice stating that the United Australia Party had been voluntarily deregistered.

Businessman Clive Palmer

Mr Palmer said he made the move because there was no election for “three to four years” and with an elected senator he could re-register the party at any time.

“It just minimises the administration work in between times,” he said.

“Being registered for the next three years to the next election is an additional expense that we don’t need.”
While there is a $500 fee to register a party, change its name or add or remove an abbreviation, the AEC does not list any costs for ongoing registration.
“I don’t know what it costs. That’s just the reason for it,” Mr Palmer said.
The businessman and founder of the UAP said the decision of the party was not up to him, but the party’s membership, saying he was retired.

Asked if there was a vote, Mr Palmer said: “I think there was a vote by the executive committee that that was what we should do.”
He then confirmed that he was on the executive committee.
Mr Palmer insisted the Victorian senator elected under the UAP banner in May, Ralph Babet, remained a UAP senator despite the party being deregistered.

“Registration has nothing to do with whether you’re a political party. There’s registered political parties and there’s unregistered ones,” he said.

Clive Palmer. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

“The registration really gives you gives you dollar-for-dollar funding or having your name (and the party’s name) put on the ballot paper. He’s still a member of our party.”
An AEC spokesman said it was a question for the Senate, not the AEC, as to whether Senator Babet would be considered a UAP senator or an independent senator.

Mr Palmer said he would not contest the next federal election himself but he was “sure that the party would be”.

He said there was no intention to run at the next Queensland election, but it may in the November Victorian election.

Mr Palmer is still contesting fraud charges from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in relation to the transfer of more than $12.1 million in 2013 through his company Mineralogy to benefit the then Palmer United Party.

Mr Palmer registered the UAP name in 2013. It was previously deregistered in 2017 and re-registered in 2018.

The original United Australia Party in the 1930s and ’40s won four elections and had two prime ministers, Joseph Lyons and Robert Menzies, before being absorbed into the Liberal Party.

It has no affiliation with the modern UAP.