Liberals for Forests

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Liberals for Forests was an Australian political minor party. It contested both state and federal elections between 2001 and 2008, but only ever achieved one elected representative – Janet Woollard in Western Australia. It never achieved representation at the federal level.^[1]

The party was founded in 1999 by Dr Keith Woollard, husband of Janet Woollard and an ex-AMA president.^[2][3] Janet successfully contested a seat at the 2001 state election, and was re-elected in 2005 and again in 2008 as an Independent Liberal.

The party generally professed itself to be ideologically aligned with the centre-right sympathies of the Liberal Party, but was aligned with Labor in certain states such as NSW but with a greater regard to environmentalism.^[4]

Despite its low profile, the party gained a respectable proportion of the primary senate vote in some states. For example, in the 2004 election it received only a few hundred votes less than the Australian Democrats in Victoria.

The registered party name at the Australian Electoral Commission^[5] and the Western Australian Electoral Commission^[6] was "liberals for forests" (uncapitalised), but it was known in newspapers as "Liberals for Forests". By late 2009, Liberals for Forests was no longer a registered political party anywhere in Australia.

• Small-l liberal – a term used by LFF candidates to describe themselves in order to attract the support of mildly disenchanted coalition voters
• Sustainable Australia Party
• Teal independents – a loosely-aligned group of independent and minor party politicians characterised as strongly advocating for increased action to mitigate climate change.

• official site (Internet Archive – snapshot 2006)