A Tale of Two Implications: Babet v Commonwealth; Palmer v Commonwealth

In 2022, Senator Ralph Babet was elected to the Senate as the sole representative of the United Australia Party (UAP), a political party formed by mining magnate Clive Palmer. In the same year, the UAP was voluntarily deregistered as a political party by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). The reasons for the UAP's voluntary deregistration are opaque. At the time, Mr Palmer did not comment. Senator Babet initially expressed surprise when he learnt about the UAP's deregistration but later said that he had known about it but had forgotten and that the decision was made for "administrative reasons".