Unity Party (Australia)

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Unity Party (Australia) is a small multiculturist party in Australia, formed in 1997 with the aim of opposing the rise of controversial anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson. Initially billed as a party to unite Australians of all ethnicities against racism, in practice it has never managed to draw significant support outside of Australia's East Asian ethnic communities. After the demise of Pauline Hanson as a political force, Unity has accordingly shifted its focus onto ethnic community affairs at a local government level.

Unity initially attracted much attention when it was founded in 1997, and ran candidates in almost every House of Representatives seat at the 1998 election. While they had hopes of picking up a Senate candidate in New South Wales with prominent lawyer Jason Yat-Sen Li, they ultimately fell well short. However, they did manage to outpoll the Australian Democrats and Australian Greens in some House of Representatives seats.

As the Hanson movement began to disintegrate, it also negated Unity's main platform, and the party soon fell into internal tensions. The party's founder, Dr Peter Wong, managed to win a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council with less than 2% of the vote, and this came against the backdrop of a series of resignations - including that of Li. Wong soon stepped down as leader in favour of an Anglo-Australian in an attempt to broaden the party's base.

Unity's activities largely died down throughout 2000 and Wong acted as a virtual independent in the Legislative Council. However, with the re-emergence of Hanson's One Nation party at the 2001 Western Australian state election, they again came together and put together a large slate of candidates for the federal election that same year. Despite having several prominent candidates (such as former Melbourne City Council member Wellington Lee in Victoria), they fell even further short of electing any members to either house of federal parliament.

After their failure to break into federal parliament in 2001, Unity largely shifted its attentions to local government, running a number of councillors in largely non-Anglo-Celtic areas - primarily in suburban Sydney. It did not run any candidates in the 2004 federal election.