On 23 April 2013, John Shipton registered the WikiLeaks Party with Australia’s Electoral Commission, presenting it as a vehicle for government transparency, accountability, and human rights. Weeks before the 2013 election, however, party preference arrangements placed the far-right Australia First Party above the Greens in New South Wales and the National Party above WikiLeaks supporter Scott Ludlam in Western Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that WikiLeaks had entered complex preference deals with mainly right-wing micro-parties. The party initially blamed “administrative errors,” but an internal review rejected that explanation.
The review’s credibility was itself disputed: it could interview only Shipton, had limited or no access to official minutes, transcripts, and correspondence, and could not independently verify his account. Candidate Leslie Cannold and other National Council members resigned, arguing that remaining would imply the party was democratically governed despite the opposite evidence. Shipton reportedly attempted to build a new power base and called council members “raving fucking lunatics,” while Julian Assange acknowledged the resignations as significant. In March 2014, council member Jamal Daoud also alleged that the group had been denied access to financial records and was told it carried $70,000 in debt despite having no employees or advertising. The episode damaged the party’s credibility and exposed a sharp governance gap between WikiLeaks’ public transparency mission and its own internal operations.
