AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS

centrist political party founded in 1977 and supported by those dissatisfied with the major Australian parties, the Liberals on the right and the Australian Labor Party on the left. Its support is strongest among professionals and small businessmen concerned with inflation, rising labour costs, environmental degradation, and polarization between right and left in Australia. The party founder, Donald Leslie Chipp, was a Liberal minister until he was denied a post in the 1975 Liberal-National Party government. The Australian Democrats won 9 percent of the vote in 1977 and elected two senators. In 1980 they elected five senators, and in subsequent years they frequently held a sufficient number of seats to give them the balance of power in the upper chamber.