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Family First Party

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Family First Party

The Family First Party was a conservative political party in Australia which existed from 2002 to 2017. It was founded in South Australia where it enjoyed its greatest electoral support. Since the demise of the Australian Conservatives into which it merged, it has been refounded in that state as the Family First Party (2021).

Family First had three candidates elected to the Senate during its existence—Steve Fielding (2005–2011), Bob Day (2014–2016), and Lucy Gichuhi (2017; elected on a countback following Day being declared ineligible). At state level, the party won a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council across four consecutive state elections (2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014). It also briefly had representatives in the New South Wales Legislative Council and Western Australian Legislative Council, as a result of defections from other parties.

The party was generally considered to be part of the Christian right. Though it had no formal affiliation with any particular religious organisation, Family First was strongly linked to the Pentecostal church in South Australia, and nationally from smaller Christian denominations. Family First in South Australia was viewed as an infusion of ex-Liberals via Robert Brokenshire and Day. Originally advocating a moral and family values agenda, Day, who would become Family First's major donor, later reoriented Family First to begin to emphasise issues such as industrial relations reform, free speech and smaller government, which brought Family First closer to Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives. Family First and its two state parliamentarians Dennis Hood and Brokenshire joined and merged with Bernardi's Australian Conservatives on 25 April 2017.

Newly appointed Family First senator Lucy Gichuhi did not join the Conservatives, and became an independent senator when Family First was disbanded. Gichuhi was invited to join the Australian Conservatives' voting bloc in the Senate, but ultimately chose to join the Liberal Party. Brokenshire was not re-elected at the 2018 state election, and Hood left the Conservatives to join the Liberal Party on 26 March 2018.

The party was founded 2002 in South Australia, in time to contest the 2002 state election, when former Assemblies of God pastor Andrew Evans became its first elected member, winning a seat in the South Australian Legislative Council. A second party member, pharmaceutical executive Dennis Hood, was elected to the Legislative Council at the 2006 state election. Robert Brokenshire replaced Evans following the latter's retirement in 2008.

At the 2004 federal election, Family First contested seats all over Australia, generally exchanging preferences with Liberal candidates, although in some seats it exchanged preferences with the Australian Labor Party. In Queensland, the party refused to direct preferences to Liberal candidate Ingrid Tall on the grounds she was openly gay, also refusing to preference Liberal candidate Warren Entsch for his support for same-sex marriage. At that election, Steve Fielding was elected as a senator for Victoria for the party. Fielding, along with independent Nick Xenophon and the five Australian Greens, shared the balance of power in the Senate from July 2008 to July 2011. He lost his seat at the 2010 federal election.

In June 2008, sitting MP and former Liberal Party member, Dan Sullivan, joined the Western Australian state branch of Family First as an executive member. When three former One Nation MPs attended the public launch of the branch, it fuelled media speculation that they might try to influence the West Australian branch.

During the 2009/10 financial year, party chairman Bob Day made two loans totalling $405,000 to Family First. After gaining 4% of the vote in several House of Representatives seats in the 2010 federal election, the party also received around $400,000 in Commonwealth election funding.

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