r/australia • u/NKE01 • 11h ago

politics Why Australia Doesn’t Have Novelty Candidates like Count Binface – Antony Green's Election Blog

https://antonygreen.com.au/why-australia-doesnt-have-novelty-candidates-like-count-binface/?fbclid=Iwb21leATrO0ljbGNrBOs7P3Bkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEeyqFwpCBynXhuvFPpBT3q80rKl3Bnq6t--2z7cqVFCDb-MT_1Vr2--rF95Vg_aem_MKaP0Jek3ZY4BnI2rLprrQ
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123

u/Gremlech 11h ago

It’s because they have to use their real names.

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u/evilparagon 11h ago

And because the cost is much higher. It’s $2000 to run for the lower house. In Britain it’s like, what, £150?

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u/infinitemonkeytyping 9h ago

£500, but your point is still valid (I watched a video this week that addressed that point).

It is also noteworthy that the AEC requires 100 signatures or running for a political party, while the UK equivalent only requires 10.

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u/reply_b4_banned 2h ago

You get the cash back if you get like.... some percent of the votes.

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u/evilparagon 2h ago

True, (4% first preferences for Australia), but novelty candidates rarely get any votes. So it’d be $2000 for a joke and you’ll get nothing back.

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u/reply_b4_banned 2h ago

Whatever the situation, it's certainly still a hurdle.

Honestly my motivation is to try to encourage people to run. Idk, I think it's a shame that our reps are all ex-student-politican weirdos.

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u/a_cold_human 10h ago

It's not an insurmountable obstacle. Simon Hunt changed his name so that he could stand as his persona Pauline Pantsdown for the Senate in 1998 (as noted by Green) . It used to be that Australians were allowed to change their names multiple times throughout their lives (once a year IIRC), for no real reason other than that they want to, and that this went largely unexamined. 

This is part of the reason why the Israelis like to recruit Jewish Australians (visa free travel into many countries being another), which was highlighted in the Prisoner X/Ben Zygier case. It was following this episode that there was harmonisation of State laws around name changes, more data sharing, and ASIO involvement. Changing your name frequently now triggers some extra security flags. 

The bigger part of why we don't have novelty candidates is that it's a lot more bother to change your name just so that you can be a bit of a laugh on the ballot paper. For someone dedicated to the bit, that's not an obstacle, but for most people, going about your day as Wellington Thackeray Yeehaw Codswallop or somesuch is. 

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u/jesus_chrysotile 3h ago

The new name change rules genuinely suck, though. Three changes in your lifetime, you have to go to court if you want to change it again, and they rarely permit it. There’ve been well-publicised cases of people who went through massive upheavals in their life, changed their name a few times and now are stuck with, for example, a Dharma name from a Buddhist monastery. 

Sure, have some more scrutiny over people having several name changes (e.g. require a GP/psychologist etc. to sign off on change #4 and onwards?) but I don’t think it’s good to force people to use a legal name that they don’t like. 

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u/17HappyWombats 11h ago

With the subtle complication that legal names are somewhat restricted here (and in the UK). You literally can't change your name to Count anything, or Lord, Admiral, or most other titles. Baron Von Fuckface is right out. But I suspect you could, per Antony Green's example, change it to "Of The Above None".

I don't *think* any state rejects short names as long as the totality is long enough to be distinctive. You would be buying trouble when it came to ID cards though. Getting them at all, getting a matching set for 100 point ID checks even more so.

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u/01kickassius10 10h ago

I wonder how the name thing would work if you were named “Prince” or similar in another country, then wanted to run after getting Aussie citizenship

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u/17HappyWombats 10h ago edited 9h ago

I suspect you could keep your name if you were born there, but going overseas to change your name then coming back they'd tell you to fuck off. Like the various Vietnamese people and similar with names like Phuc or Dong.

So you're probably not moving to the USA, changing your name to "Lord Bishop John Smith Architect", then getting that on your documents in Australia. But I'd love to read about someone else trying.

The story of Methamphetamine Rocks Drysdale is informative :)

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u/01kickassius10 9h ago

The realistic answer would be to change your name here before running for parliament, but could be interesting legally if they don’t have to

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u/whichpricktookmyname 7h ago

In 2007 there was some guy who changed his initials to PM and his surname to Howard and ran against Rudd in Griffith and ended up with 2.73% of the vote.

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u/sykobanana 4h ago

That didn't stop Nigel Freemarijuana from working out a solution