An alternative to the party? Australia’s movement for community independents
2025-07-10
Political parties as the sole vehicle for collective organising in the electoral arena are coming under increasing pressure in systems of representative democracy. A serious disruptor to party dominance has emerged in Australia where local community groups are self-organising to replace their federal party representative with a ‘community independent’. Collectively these groups are referred to as the “Community Independents Movement” (CIM), whose broad goal is to provide voters with an alternative to the “broken” party system. This article asks: what in practice is the alternative form of political organising offered by the CIM? An analysis finds that the CIM performs many conventional functions of political parties, but its localised approach affords greater flexibility and local autonomy. The case of the CIM speaks to global debates on the conceptual and functional differences between parties and other modes of political organising.