Liberals for Forests
Template:Short description Template:Use Australian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox political party
Liberals for Forests (LFF) was an Australian political party. It contested both state and federal elections between 2001 and 2008, but only ever achieved one elected representative – Janet Woollard in Western Australia. It never achieved representation at the federal level.<ref>The Nationals: The Progressive, Country, and National Party 186287526X Paul Davey – 2006 "A group calling themselves Liberals for Forests fielded a candidate, as they did in six other House of Representatives seats. They produced a how-to-vote card on election day, which the Liberal and National parties argued was misleading to.."</ref>
The party was founded in 1999 by Dr Keith Woollard, husband of Janet Woollard and an ex-AMA president.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Janet successfully contested a seat at the 2001 state election, and was re-elected in 2005 and again in 2008 as an Independent Liberal.
The party generally professed itself to be ideologically aligned with the centre-right sympathies of the Liberal Party, but was aligned with Labor in certain states such as NSW but with a greater regard to environmentalism.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Despite its low profile, the party gained a respectable proportion of the primary senate vote in some states. For example, in the 2004 election it received only a few hundred votes less than the Australian Democrats in Victoria.
Name
The registered party name at the Australian Electoral Commission<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the Western Australian Electoral Commission<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was "liberals for forests" (uncapitalised), but it was known in newspapers as "Liberals for Forests". By late 2009, Liberals for Forests was no longer a registered political party anywhere in Australia.
See also
- Progressive Green Party (New Zealand) – a similar party in New Zealand
- Small-l liberal – a term used by LFF candidates to describe themselves in order to attract the support of mildly disenchanted coalition voters
- Teal independents – a loosely-aligned group of independent and minor party politicians characterised as strongly advocating for increased action to mitigate climate change.