Meg Lees, the former leader of the Australian Democrats, has finally launched her new political party - the Australian Progressive Alliance (APA). Strangely, Meg has waited until she is a forgotten backbencher and there is a war and ALP leadership issues going on to announce her new party - and subsequently ensured minimum exposure. She needed to set up the new party last year when she had some support, and then she could have used the Iraqi war to differentiate herself from the other minor parties. Too late now.

Some interesting things to note about the new party. The name was 'road tested' on Margo Kingston's Webdiary (where Liberal Democratic Party was another suggestion). For a party that apparently wants to pitch to the right of the Greens, it is an odd name. One of Australia's many irrelevant little socialist parties - the Progressive Labour Party - have previously suggested creating a super-socialist alliance that they wanted to call the Progressive Australian Alliance. As an aside, the PLP then refused to join the super-socialist party that was set up, called the Socialist Alliance.

The other interesting thing about the name is that it is an 'Alliance', not a 'Party'. I have always maintained that the Democrats have had a lot in common with One Nation. Both are protectionist, backward looking, anti-immigration and economically ignorant. And now the similarities go further. When One Nation split last century, the break away party called itself the City-Country Alliance (CCA). The fate of that party might be instructive for Meg. After the split, the CCA had several sitting members of the Qld parliament. After the next election, all were gone and One Nation members were re-elected (allbeit in smaller numbers). The CCA is now no more.

Putting the name aside - the APA has a real problem about where it is going to position itself. Andrew Bartlett, now leader of the Australian Democrats, has already come out and said that the APA is identical to the Democrats except that it is less democratic and has less of a chance to have influence. For her part, Lees says that her party will try to sit between the ALP and the Liberals, instead of to the left of both parties.

It is fair to say that the Democrats have moved left and are now to the left of the ALP. However, to a large degree this makes sense. The difference between the ALP and the Liberals is now so small as to make it near impossible to stay between the parties. The real niche in modern minor party politics has to be through differentiating the party from the major parties... such as the socialist-environmentalist Greens and the nationalist ultra-conservative One Nation. And maybe a libertarian party?

So the Democrats have moved to the left and Meg wants to stay between the two big boys. If she can find some space. This may be of value to the Liberals who would like to see a reduction in the Green/Democrat vote. Will she succeed? I doubt it.