Talk:2012 Niddrie state by-election

CDP

Was it a CDP candidate or an Australian Christians candidate? (Note that the VEC page won't help as they labelled the Melb candidate as CDP for some reason...) Timeshift (talk) 07:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Frank Papafotiou was indeed an "Australian Christians" candidate, the party had its national launch on 7 March, and launched in Victoria on 16 March, just before the Niddrie by-election.[1] Several news stories and blogs refer to AC as a "breakaway party/group" of the CDP.[2], and there's an article in The Age in which the Victorian Council of Churches objected to the party name, and said that AC is a re-branding of the Victorian and WA branches of the CDP (Fred Nile Group), but the NSW and Queensland branches are staying as they are due to Fred Nile's name recognition in those states.[3] The articles about the VCC's objection are quite recent, which suggests the party was registered with the VEC very recently—perhaps not in time for Niddrie. As for the VEC, they do call the party "Australian Christians" in the Melbourne results, but they just seem to use the same abbreviation ("CDP = AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIANS"). --Canley (talk) 23:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Canley is right about the relationship between the CDP and the Australian Christians, from what I've been able to discover (although in reliable sources it's difficult to find the exact relationship between the two). Antony lists Papafotiou as a candidate of the "Christian Party", which is an abbreviation the CDP had used in Victoria before. Going from memory, the CDP was still registered as the Christian Democratic Party at this point. The by-election report suggests that it was still registered as the Christian Democratic Party (p. 11) using "Christian Party" as the abbreviation (p. 17). Frickeg (talk) 09:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)