Federal politics Before the
2004 federal election, the Australian Shooters Party was deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission for failing to contest a federal election for four years. It was re-registered after the 2004 federal election but was deregistered again on 27 December 2006, along with a number of minor parties which did not have a representative sitting in Federal Parliament. Re-registration was achieved in August 2007. The Australian Shooters Party contested the
2007 federal election and received 0.28% of the national vote and 1.1% of the vote in NSW. The Party was instrumental in flowing preferences away from the Greens in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.
Glenn Druery who was behind the
2013 federal election preference deal successes with candidate elections on 0.2 and 0.5 percent was remunerated by the Shooters and Fishers Party for assisting in organising preference meetings and negotiating preference flows between parties. However, Burston subsequently stated: "The claim that I have approached the Shooters Party is totally and absolutely false".
New South Wales (left) and
Philip Donato at the 2022 Fire Brigade Employees' Union conference, prior to their resignation from the party At the
2007 New South Wales state election, the Shooters Party received 2.8% of the primary vote for the Legislative Council (↑0.8%) and lead candidate
Roy Smith was elected to the Legislative Council. On 30 July 2010, Smith died in his sleep and
Robert Borsak was nominated by the party to fill the casual vacancy. As a result, the party holds 2 seats in the NSW Upper House. In 2009 an agreement was reached to allow hunters onto public lands in a deal with the government. At the
2011 New South Wales state election, the Liberal/National Coalition took government but with three seats short of a majority in the upper house. The Shooters and Fishers Party held two seats along with the
Christian Democratic Party, with the
balance of power shifting from the Greens to the two parties. The Shooters and Fishers Party was reported to have created a "shopping list" of demands in exchange for legislative support of the now Liberal/National government, however the government "ruled out" any deals with the Shooters. In May 2012 the party negotiated a deal with the O'Farrell government giving recreational shooters access to national parks to cull feral animals including pigs, rabbits and deer by allowing the passage of laws through the NSW Upper House to sell the state-owned power generating assets of
Eraring Energy,
Delta Electricity and
Macquarie Generation, that were claimed to yield up to A$3 billion. Deals continue to have fallout. At the
state by-election for Orange on 12 November 2016, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate
Philip Donato became the party's first lower house member, defeating the incumbent
National Party for the seat in the Legislative Assembly. In the
2019 New South Wales state election, the party made breakthroughs in
the state's lower house, with candidates
Roy Butler and
Helen Dalton winning the seats of
Barwon and
Murray respectively. On 3 March 2022, Dalton resigned from Shooters Fishers and Farmers due to disagreeing with the party's Legislative Council members not showing up to vote against a bill regarding water usage that she believed would "disadvantage communities and irrigators in the lower Darling and Murray river system". On 12 December 2022, Butler and Donato resigned over the behaviour of leader Robert Borsak.
Northern Territory The SFF Party has very little presence in the
Northern Territory, but a Northern Territory branch of the party does exist. At the
2016 general election, the party ran candidates in two rural seats:
Katherine and
Nelson. At the
2016 federal election, the party contested both the remote seat of
Lingiari and the metropolitan seat of
Solomon. The party preferenced the
incumbent members for their respect seats behind the other major party on their
how-to-vote cards, thus preferencing the
Country Liberal Party (CLP) ahead of
Labor in Lingiari and Labor ahead of the CLP in Solomon, and the parts preferenced the
Greens last in both seats. In the Northern Territory, the party's voter base absorbs a plurality of voters who vote for
Pauline Hanson's One Nation on the federal level, as One Nation does not contest Northern Territory general elections.
South Australia At the
2006 South Australian state election, two Shooters Party candidates for the Legislative Council, Robert Low and Michael Hudson,
preferenced the
Family First Party as well as the
One Nation Party. The Shooters Party received just under 6,000 votes, or 0.6% of the electors, with a 0.08 quota. Neither candidate was elected. The party also contested the
2010 (as Shooters) and
2014 (as Shooters and Fishers) elections, increasing the number of votes in each but not enough to achieve a quota. It was deregistered before the 2018 election.
Victoria At the
2014 Victorian state election, two Shooters and Fishers candidates were elected to the Legislative Council:
Jeff Bourman received 2.44% first preference votes in the
Eastern Victoria Region and was elected on preferences from the other minor parties, and
Daniel Young received 3.5% first preference votes in the
Northern Victoria Region and was also elected on preferences. Bourman was re-elected in 2018, while Young was defeated. Bourman was re-elected in 2022.
Western Australia At the
2013 Western Australian state election, Shooters and Fishers candidate
Rick Mazza was elected to the Legislative Council with 3.09% of the vote in the
Agricultural Region.
Nigel Hallett was elected for the
Liberal Party in
South West Region, but changed to the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers in June 2016. Mazza retained his seat at the 2017 election, but Hallett did not. Mazza subsequently formed a 'conservative bloc' with
One Nation and the
Liberal Democratic Party in the Legislative Council.
Tasmania At the
2025 Tasmanian state election,
Carlo Di Falco was elected as the seventh member for the electorate of
Lyons in the
Tasmanian House of Assembly. Di Falco is the first member of the SFF to be elected into Tasmanian state parliament. Subsequently key party figures quit over Di Falco's change of stance on a new Hobart stadium project. ==State and territory divisions==