First published on The Drum: 06/12/2011

It’s the timeless sales pitch for joining a political party: A megaphone and bad hair will only get you so far, the real way to effect political change is from ‘inside the tent’.

But when it comes to politics, we’re not happy campers. Membership of mainstream political parties is on the slide, with Labor’s shrinking and disaffected base a key area of debate during the weekend’s National Conference.

Essential polling this week shows meeting the Prime Minister’s target of 8,000 new members this year will be a serious challenge for the party. In fact, to achieve the target will mean improving the current performance by a factor of about 8,000.

This week we asked about membership of all sorts of social, community, recreational and political organisations and of all these categories, it is the political parties that are suffering the most.

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Every Australian Counts is a campaign that has hit many highs since it’s launch in January 2011. The campaign to implement a National Disability Insurance Scheme is about to reach 80,000 supporters on the campaign website, close to the 2011 goal of 100,000. There are almost 12,000 active supporters on the lively Facebook page.

These numbers are absolutely fantastic – they show a growing movement committed to work to get the NDIS in place.  But the figures come second to the big win of the campaign so far – the Federal Government’s announcement in August that it ‘shared the vision’ for an NDIS.

The Government has dedicated $10 million to the groundwork recommended by the Productivity Commission and initial advisory committees have been established. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) is also on board at this point.

Now, the hard slog begins.

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