Outdoor Recreation Party

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The Outdoor Recreation Party is a minor political party in Australia. It largely represents the outdoor community and such interests as camping, kayaking, cycling, 4WDing, skiing, walking, fishing lobbies, as well as similar recreational groups that risk being affected by extremist conservation groups implementing "wilderness" devoid of human interaction. Their main platform is based around community involvement with nature.

It has contested several federal and state elections, though it has only managed to elect one state MP, Malcolm Jones, who was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1999 due to a very strong flow of preferences from other parties, despite receiving only 0.2% of the primary vote. Jones resigned in 2003 amidst a corruption scandal, and party member Dr Jon Jenkins was elected by the Legislative Council to serve out the remainder of Jones' term, which does not end until 2007. Since Dr Jenkins' election there has been a distinct change in the character of the ORP.

Although there has been speculation otherwise ^{[citation needed]} the party has easily passed the registration process as required by the NSW Electoral Office in June 2006 and will continue beyond the 2007 New South Wales state election. Further, although not alone in this respect, the ORP constitution has made it difficult for the rank and file to implement change in the direction of the ORP to a wider platform and as a result many members have become disillusioned with the party. The ORP is currently changing the processes required to implement change and has adopted a wider set of policies on many social issues. These can be viewed here [1]