Victorian Socialists to expand into every state and territory

EXCLUSIVE: Seven years after it was launched, the party is growing Australia-wide.

The Victorian Socialists are set to expand Australia-wide after increasing its support at the federal election, 6 News can reveal.

At a meeting of the party's executive on Sunday, the decision was made to grow nationally. The executive will next month move a motion at the party's conference to put in a request to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) for a name change. The state reference will be removed from its federal registration, and 6 News understands the party will renamed to the "Socialist Party" but simply be referred to as "the Socialists" at a national level going forward.

It's understood discussions about the party expanding outside of Victoria have increased significantly and rapidly in recent months. Jordan van den Lamb (aka Purple Pingers), who ran as the party's lead candidate in the Senate in Victoria at the federal election, told 6 News on election night that an expansion was "on the cards" and people should "stay tuned".

Party spokesperson James Plested said that "we've had people asking when we are going to establish parties on the model of Victorian Socialists in other parts of Australia".

"That time has come".

The party wants to get registered at a state level across Australia, including NSW Socialists, SA Socialists, Queensland Socialists, Canberra Socialists (initially announced as ACT Socialists but rebranded this morning), WA Socialists, NT Socialists and Tasmanian Socialists. Social media accounts for all new parties were quietly created over the weekend.

Membership requirements vary for each jurisdiction – but if successful, the Socialists would join just four parties that currently hold registration at the federal level and in all states/territories (those being Labor, the Greens, Animal Justice, and – through various parties – the Liberal-National coalition).

Plested said the Victorian Socialists "were happy to see [Peter] Dutton and his Liberal Party smashed at this election, but we know Labor isn’t going to deliver the kind of change Australia desperately needs".

"There’s a class war going on in this country, and both Labor and the Coalition have, over many years, been waging it against workers and the poor on behalf of the capitalist class and the rich".

"We also know that as voters become disillusioned with do-nothing Labor governments, there is a real danger that they can shift their support to the many far-right fringe parties that preach a divisive populism instead of a politics of solidarity and collective struggle for a better, fairer society. Where socialists can run a decent campaign, we can gain a hearing and often win people away from voting for the faux anti-establishment parties of the far right."

"And there's no reason, given the shared political context, that this would be any different in other parts of Australia".

At the federal election, the Victorian Socialists had a limited campaign in the House of Representatives, with candidates in four of the state's 38 lower house seats. It increased its vote in all contests, including winning 8.6% in Labor-held Cooper.

In the Senate, the ticket led by Van den Lamb doubled its vote from 2022 and is sitting in eighth place, ahead of parties including Animal Justice, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, and the Libertarian Party. Van den Lamb was one of four participants in a live debate for Victorian Senate candidates conducted by 6 News earlier this year.

It's not just federal election results that the Socialists have been pleased with. The Victorian local government elections in October 2024 saw the Socialists win the single-member Whipstick Ward on Greater Bendigo City Council. Across the state, it had around 80 endorsed candidates.

Upcoming postal by-elections in Whittlesea and Darebin also give the party further opportunities to contest at the local level.

The next Victorian state election is in November 2026. Since its formation in 2018, the Socialists have put effort into its state upper house campaigns, but have so far been unable to get into parliament. Its best-performing regions in 2022 were Northern Metropolitan and Western Metropolitan.

Van Den Lamb says the Socialists "want to build branches in every state and territory, and ultimately every city and town in Australia".

"We won't win a better, more equal society if our struggles remain isolated and divided. The more of us there are coming together across Australia to fight the rotten status quo of capitalist politics, the more powerful our movement will become."

"If we can build socialist parties across Australia on the model of Victorian Socialists, our movement will be impossible to ignore. The long-term decline in the vote share of the major parties shows people want change. We're announcing ourselves, today, as people who are determined to deliver that."

The Victorian Socialists' upcoming conference will be held from 14-15 June.