Minor parties join forces to form 'non-ideological' election alliance

Fusion, Democracy First and the Australian Progressives have formed an alliance ahead of the federal election.

Three minor parties have joined forces with an alliance at this year's federal election, promising a "non-ideological, not left or right" stance.

The Fusion Party, Democracy First, and the Australian Progressives have joined forces, utilising Fusion's party registration to contest the election. Democracy First has never been registered, while the Australian Progressives were previously but have since been deregistered, meaning the alliance appears on the ballot as "FUSION | Planet Rescue | Whistleblower Protection | Innovation".

Fusion was formed in 2021 following a merger of the Science Party, Pirate Party, Secular Party, Vote Planet, and Climate Change Justice Party. It had a nationwide total of 0.3% at the 2022 federal election in the Senate. The Australian Progressives were formed in 2014 and contested the Senate in Victoria and the ACT last election.

Democracy First's history is a little more complicated. In 2021, The Civil Society tried to establish the Sensible Centre Party with radio personality Byron Cooke as one of its candidates, but it was never registered for the 2022 federal election.

Then in November 2022, The Conservative Party emerged, seemingly set up by Civil Society-linked people. The party endorsed Mark Gardner as its candidate for the Aston federal by-election in April 2023, but never ended up contesting. It soon changed its name to The Conservative Centre. In December 2023, it was again renamed to "Fix the Mess in Canberra". In May 2024, it was – you guessed it – again renamed, this time to "Democracy First", which seems to have stuck.

Miles Whiticker, who comes from the Pirate Party side of the Fusion merger, is contesting the Senate in New South Wales as the party's lead candidate. He described the new alliance as a "relaunch" of Fusion for the 2025 election, and says what the party is doing is a "new and different kind of politics".

"If you look for what is the centre, what is the single one thing that Fusion is - there's kind of no one thing".

"You can look at any two or three of our member parties and they might have 60 to 90 percent in common, but then there'll be a different 90 percent overlap between any two of our member parties...one way to look at us is a process-based political party".

On the question of political ideology – given Democracy First was previously known as The Conservative Party – Whiticker told 6 News: "It'd be fair to call us centrist in that if the theory clashes with the evidence, we're more likely to side with the evidence than the theory...we're biased towards evidence rather than ideology".

Vern Hughes is the convenor of Democracy First and has been involved in a wide range of minor parties, including recently the Australian Federation Party, which merged with Trumpet of Patriots in 2024 to eventuate as the party now chaired by Clive Palmer.

"To me, it feels [Vern Hughes] speaks more of as a centrist non-ideological position, and so maybe it was his experience in right-wing and centre-right spaces which made him realise that when you lean too far into ideology...then it simply doesn't work," Whiticker said.