Liberals for forests (l4f) is an Australian pro-forest party. It is not connected to either the Liberal Party or the Australian Greens, and does not preference either highly.

It was founded in 1999 by Dr Keith Woollard (ex- AMA president) to harness the votes of the many Western Australian social conservatives who wanted to reform forest management in that state.

In the following 2001 WA state election, they recieved 10% of the vote in the seats they ran in, winning a Legislative Council seat (for by Dr Woollard's wife Janet Woollard ). This support, and the support shown for other parties with similar forestry policy meant that reform did take place. Political types and environmentalists all over Australia took notice.

l4f groups formed in each of the mainland east coast states. In most if not all cases, these were run by members of the Liberal Democratic Party.

In the 2004 election, the NSW campaign was headed by Glenn Druery . Glenn was most famous for causing the "tablecloth ballot" of the 1999 NSW state election. In that election he helped a number of minor parties run candidates, and then got their preferences for his Outdoor Recreation Party candidate. He got elected with just 0.8% of the primary vote. This time Glenn was the candidate.

As before, Glenn skillfully organised a host of pragmatic preferences. Additionally, unlike every other state, l4f ran a number of candidates in a number of marginal House of Representantives seats. Many forms of deception were alledged by various sources including the Sydney Morning Herald, Crikey, the Northern Rivers Echo, and the National Party. Most of the alleged deception involved l4f staff pretending to be working for the Liberal Party of Australia.

Overall, it received nearly 1 in every 100 senate first preference votes cast in the 2004 election.

It did particularly well in Victoria where it came within a thousand votes of the Australian Democrats and the Family First Party. Considering that the ALP preferenced l4f higher in this division than Family First, if l4f had got just one more vote than Family First, they would have won a senate seat.

This Victorian success was despite the party having almost no profile in the state. This contrasted greatly with the huge effort made in NSW for little result.

In the 2005 WA state election Janet Woollard, now running as an "Indepedendant Liberal", retained her seat.

External Links

Official Site

Connected Groups

Teachers for Forests - shares Victorian organisers
Doctors for Native Forests - shares Victorian organisers
Doctors for Forests - Tasmanian group founded by l4f founder
Liberal Democratic Party - shares many people with the east coast branches

News

1999

The founding of l4f

2001

Party Profile
l4f WA Candidate Liz Davenport
l4f in Tasmania
Preferencing in the Aston By-Election
Janet Woollard's Inaugral Speach

2004

NSW strategy media release?
SMH view of l4f Sydney "Dirty Tricks"
Crikey view of l4f Sydney "Dirty Tricks"
Northern Rivers Echo view of l4f Northern NSW "Dirty Tricks"
Nats' view of Northern NSW "Dirty Tricks"
NSW preference analysis
l4f 2004 More NSW preference analysis
l4f preferences effect in Sydney

2005

WA pre-election analysis