Joining a political party whose principles you like is a great way to participate in our democracy at a grassroots level. So if you happen to like our principles, we'd love to have you as a member.

In concrete terms, your formal membership helps us to maintain our official registration as a federal political party (which currently requires we have at least 500 members who are enrolled to vote) and work towards official registration at state and territory level. It also is our best way of measuring our current level of support — more so than numbers such as website traffic or Facebook likes, which may indicate interest in us, but not necessarily anything more than that.

From your point of view, party officers are more likely to view your feedback and suggestions as constructive attempts to help us improve what we're doing if it's coming from a party member. Members also gain various formal rights within the party's internal democracy, as detailed below.

Absolutely not! Not even the people who wrote the current policy platform agree 100% with one another about every detail on every issue. We are a party of individuals with differing views; we just feel there is enough overlap, especially in our basic philosophy and in our fundamental beliefs about how to improve society, that we can benefit from working together. So long as you share our broad outlook you are more than welcome to join the party.

If you, for instance, don’t like our policy on nuclear energy research because you feel a 100% renewables mix is a technically and environmentally superior option, please join the party and change our minds on this issue! However, if you believe that climate change has been caused by technology and therefore the solution should not involve technology, but rather (say) drastic cuts to our levels of material consumption, we are probably not the party for you.

The Science Party needs the names and addresses of members to verify their presence on the Electoral Roll with the AEC. You can join the party while not on the Electoral Roll, but we need to track the enrollment status of our members, so we can ensure we are maintaining the minimum requirements for party registration (federally, this requires 500 members on the electoral roll). We may also use this information to determine your eligibility for membership of state, territory or local branches of the party - for details, see the party constitution. Finally, we may perform internal statistical analysis on our members information, including where they live, in order to make strategic decisions about where to field candidates, campaign during elections, and so on.

The Science Party has no plans to use your address for any other purpose. In particular, we will not send you any unsolicited physical mail. We will not provide any of your details to third parties, except to relevant regulators (such as the AEC) to meet legal requirements. Only the Executive and senior officers of the party will have access to your name and address. If we ever decide we wish to make further use of this information, we will ask for your permission first.

If you or someone you know would like to join the party but cannot disclose some of the requested details to us, for instance because of personal security concerns, or because you have no fixed address, please contact the party membership officer.

Yes. Our current constitution specifies that membership is open to anyone who is either an Australian citizen or permanent resident.

For official purposes, the Australian Electoral Commission recognises only persons on the Australian Electoral Roll as official members (see the previous question). If would like to join the party, but are not eligible to vote in Australia, or have trouble filling out the membership form for any other reason, please contact the party membership officer.

We no longer require annual fees for Science Party membership. You are now able to remain a member for as long as you like.

However we do rely on regular donations from members and supporters to keep the party running. Any amount you can spare is greatly appreciated.

Note: Donations over $2, up to a total of $1,500 per year, are tax deductible.

The structure of the Science Party is relatively simple.

The Leader of the party is elected by an internal ballot of all members, on a ticket alongside six others who become “Regular Members of the Executive” or RMEs. Internal ballots are also held for senate candidates before parliamentary elections – with the exception of the Leader, who if he or she elects to run for the Senate in a State, takes the the number one spot on the party’s ticket. Thus, unlike most large political parties in Australia, the organisational and (possible future) parliamentary wings of The Science Party will answer directly to the same leadership group.

Together, the Leader, Regular Members of the Executive, and any elected parliamentarians make up the Executive of the party. The Executive is the party’s supreme decision making body and has broad powers under the party constitution in matters of both determining policy and internal administration. This strongly centralised decision making system is balanced by a high degree of democratic accountability – it is relatively easy for party members to force a new election for the leadership.

The Executive in turn appoints a number of office bearers to carry out the day-to-day administration of the party. These are the Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Director, who have defined roles under the constitution, as well as various secondary offices that can change over time to suit the party’s needs.

For more details, see the party’s constitution (it is relatively short and straightforward, although be aware it may change from time to time.)

Mostly of our donations go towards subscriptions on digital services and social media ads for campaigns we might run.

During elections we will raise money to fund candidate registrations ($2000 / candidate) and marketing campaigns.

The financial position of the party is accessible to all members by sending a request to [email protected].

Yes. As a member you get to cast votes in any ballots to:

• Elect the Leader and RMEs
• Elect the party’s candidates for the Senate
• Change the constitution

You can also, after meeting some relatively simple requirements, run for these positions, suggest constitutional amendments, and force one of the above types of ballots to occur. Finally, you may be asked (or even offer) to serve in some capacity as an office bearer.

While these are as far as your formal rights of membership extend, party members are also highly encouraged to contribute significantly to the party’s direction and policy development. The Executive has final say on all policy matters, but the process of creating our platform has from the start been a collaborative effort where all involved have put forward as much or as little of their own ideas and thoughts as they desire. Indeed, even non-members of the party are welcome to join our online discussions and make suggestions or offer feedback.

The Science Party is registered to contest federal elections under our party name (that is, with "Science Party" printed on the ballot paper). Federal elections are our focus, but we don't have the resources to run in every electorate. We decide where to run candidates based on where we have had past success or where a strong candidate puts themselves forward.

We plan to contest state and territory government elections and council elections in the future. To do this we need to fulfil extra requirements, including having more members in those areas.

It will also be easier to run state and territory campaigns with dedicated volunteers to run meetings around the country. If you're interested in helping with this, please email our volunteers manager.

We contested the 2013, 2016 and 2019 federal elections, as well by-elections in North Sydney (2015), Bennelong and New England (2017), and Longman, Perth and Wentworth (2018).

Election results can be found on the AEC and ABC websites.