The Family First Party led by two former Labor MPs will be the only party with that name at the South Australian state election after another party with a similar moniker had its application for registration rejected.
The SA Family First party lost an appeal against the electoral commissioner's decision that its application was invalid due to a lack of members.
Its name was also considered too similar to the Family First Party founded by former Catholic Labor ministers Jack Snelling and Tom Kenyon in July last year as a revived version of the conservative Christian party that lost its name when it merged with the Australian Conservatives in 2017.
The Family First Party had its registration officially gazetted by South Australian electoral commissioner Mick Sherry last week, ahead of the state election due in March.
SA Family First applied for registration last August and was refused in September.
It was represented at a South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing earlier this month by Peter Salerno, a party member and former United Australia Party candidate who works as a motivational speaker, a magician and a podcast host.
Tribunal president Judy Hughes agreed in a decision published this week with Mr Sherry that only 102 of the party's members were registered correctly with their full names and addresses, rather than the 200 required under the Electoral Act.
She also agreed with the commissioner that the Family First Party was a "prominent public body that it is likely to be confused" with SA Family First.
However, in her decision, Justice Hughes did criticise the Electoral Commission for "belatedly" raising the member registration issue in December after previously only mentioning the concern about the name confusion.
Mr Salerno said the electoral commissioner's decision was "a total miscarriage of justice".
He said some of the names were rejected for reasons such as a man being registered as Thomas but writing his name on the membership form as Tom.
He said Mr Snelling and Mr Kenyon refused to work with them "flat bang" despite both parties working in secret to re-establish Family First in early 2021.
Mr Kenyon is running for the Legislative Council as the Family First Party's top candidate, along with former Liberal Deepa Mathew.
Former Family First senator Bob Day is trying to return to the Senate for the Australian Family Party.
