Our application was submitted on 8th May. It has taken until 16th August for us to receive any response; that’s 100 days. Applications that have been rejected but are awaiting resubmission are always marked as ‘incomplete’ on their website, which is a bit of a misnomer as ours certainly was complete. In our last update we indicated their were 3 issues that were the stated reasons for rejection. These are as follows:
1. They have tried to determine things from our website, social media or other undeclared sources to allege a contradiction, without even contacting us for clarification, which is unreasonable and disappointing in the extreme. The law does not require the EC to operate in this manner. There is nothing in our media that determines or describes the structure of the Party. Only our constitution that does that. It is our view that the requirements of the law are satisfied, that all the points listed in their guidance have been met, and that their argument has no merit.
2. They claim a particular line could perhaps be read as though it would contradict electoral law. Rather than ask us what it meant or ask us to rephrase it, they just ran with it.
3. A small discrepancy between the date for financial year end and a reporting date. It would have taken seconds to change that date.
All the issues are simple and could have been settled by a phone call or email at any stage. The rest of their response was just requesting us to clarify a few things. Nonetheless, we are not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. We are confident that our application is solid and only requires minor amendments to close out these issues.
We remain resolute in the face of adversity. None of this will change the way we run the party, the activity we engage in or our community politics approach. We have already sent a response to challenge to the EC and their methods, answering all the points they raised and asking them various questions. The resubmission of the application will be happening very soon.
Our members attended a presentation to update them on the status of our application, to show them the correspondence and walk them through the finer points. Our Party is run transparently – our members are well informed on issues of party management and are given the opportunity to ask questions directly to the National Council.
Trust between the Party and its members is vital to the long-term survival of any party, and it’s upon that foundation of trust that we will build a movement ready to put power back into our people’s hands.
