Yesterday, Greg Barns was named Australia's WikiLeaks Party national campaign director following the party receiving support from philanthropist Philip Wollen of Melbourne.
Barns is not new to political campaigning; the barrister served as the leader of Australian Republican Movement during the late 1990s and served as a Liberal Party of Australia staffer. Barns was personally asked by Julian Assange to take the position, following Assange's own announcement late last year that he would run for a federal Senate seat in Victoria. John Shipton is already serving as the party's secretary. 
Barns said the WikiLeaks Party's federal platform will focus on several issues including human rights, freedom of speech, privacy issues, and government transparency. The Wikileaks Party has not been registered yet with the Australian Electoral Commission as they do not have 500 enrolled electors as of today.
Assange is still based in London in the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he has been living for the last nine months.  Assange would need approximately 15% of the Victorian vote to win a senate seat.  Voting in Australia is compulsory.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Greg Barns named Australia's Wikileaks Party national campaign director