Application for registration approved – The Wikileaks Party

I'd think it is because the name "Wikileaks" has higher visibility and meaning to the typical Australian voter than "Pirate Party". Despite common ground, they also have a different highest priority, Wikileaks being transparency, Pirate Party's being copyright reform. Separate parties will avoid tension due to different priorities.

Having two parties is not too big a deal in Australia's preferential voting system, as each party will probably pick up the other's preferences, meaning their votes will get transferred if they get knocked out of the contest.

I believe one of the intentions would be that having a senator currently in political asylum and wanted by the US would create a major diplomatic headache for Australia and force their hand at actually addressing the issue of Assange. Until now they've been able to sit back and ignore him because he's locked away in the middle of London as a citizen. If he were to be a senator, that would make things significantly more awkward. I found this [1] interesting analysis of the situation.

As for how voting works:

For the House of Representatives [2], each person is voted in preferential order. Each candidate must be allocated a preference or else your vote is informal and not counted.

For the Senate [3], you may either vote 'above the line' or 'below the line'. Voting above the line involves voting for a party. That party then takes your vote and distributes it amongst the preferences they decide. You cannot indicate preferences above the line - you must vote for a single party and the party then does that for you.

Voting 'below the line' involves marking each candidate from each party. They are still grouped in parties but you may number them in any order, so long as you number them all.

I am not sure what being a party vs. being independent. Independents can be elected to both houses, so I do not quite know what being in a part achieves. The AEC website doesn't obviously offer any information detailing it, at a casual glance.

[1]: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/cru/2013/04/senator_assange.html

[2]: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/Voting_HOR.htm

[3]: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/Voting_Senate.htm

At the federal election, people vote for a candidate in the lower house and party or candidate for the upper house. The party with the majority of seats in the lower house forms government.

The upper house (or senate) seats are allocated to parties based on proportion of total votes by state. My understanding is that wikileaks is hoping for a seat in the upper house as do most minor parties is Australia. So the government needs to negotiate with the minor parties for legislation to pass the upper house.

IIRC once a minimum level of votes are cast for a party they are able to receive a certain amount of funding from the government to assist in future promotional activities.