Preamble

Fusion believes that the right to participate directly is a vital part of a healthy democracy which should be both encouraged and, ideally, free.
As such, we commit to ensuring that any member who shows up has full rights to be involved in whatever function they attend.

A party has many other functions which occur in the background, and some of these functions facilitate indirect participation.
Examples of indirect participation include appointing proxies, voting for policy remotely, reviewing meetings, receiving and reading newsletters, and any other remote engagement functions.

The management of these functions is a time- and resource-sink that both affects volunteer capacity to do other productive activities, and requires IT infrastructure - the costs of which scale based on the total membership.

We hate asking for donations, you hate being asked for donations, and asking for donations becomes more and more necessary as the membership base grows - which gets in the way of other activities.

Which means, there is a need for stable funding to manage this infrastructure for a growing party and to enable more efficient use of volunteer time.

This fee structure is designed to reconcile all of that as fairly as we can.

Membership Fee Structure

Basis

As the party incorporation is registered in Victoria, all membership fees shall be denominated in numbers of Victorian Statutory Fee Units. (1 unit = $17.27 as of 2026/27 financial year)

Tiers (Proposed - Accepted at the SGM)

Membership shall be be available in the following tiers, with the nominated privileges:

  1. Free Member (0 fee units)
    • All standard membership rights.

  2. Concession Member (at least 1 fee unit)
    • Can appoint proxies for general meetings etc.

  3. Standard Member (4 fee units)
    • Appoint proxies & any other member privileges identified in the future.

  4. Sustaining Member (5 or more fee units)
    • Physical membership card (eventually)

Conditions (Proposed
- As Modified and Accepted at the SGM)

  1. The membership period for any paid membership is 12 months from the date that a member signed up for a paid membership, or the most recent subsequent renewal date thereafter.

  2. There shall be a grace period of 30 days after a member's scheduled renewal date, during which a member may resolve any non-payment of fees to maintain the status of a continuous paid membership.
    • This grace period ensures that anyone eligible to attend a General Meeting on the last date for notice to be given, remains eligible to participate in that General Meeting.
  3. The funds from every third fee unit paid in a membership period will be allocated to the branch that a member is associated with. i.e:
    • 1-2 units: all units to party administration fund
    • 3 units is split: 2 to admin, 1 to branch
    • 4-5 units is split: 3-4 to admin, 1 to branch

Conditions (Proposed - Originals)

  1. The membership period is from August 1st - July 31st each year, with July as a grace period for new sign-ups (a signup on July 1st gives 13 months membership).
    • Renewals due 1 Aug

  2. The cost for a new signup of a “Standard Member” reduces per quarter so price varies by signup date:
    • July-Oct = 4u, Nov-Jan = 3u, Feb-Apr = 2u, May-Jun = 1u
  3. The funds from every third fee unit paid in a membership period will be allocated to the branch that a member is associated with. i.e:
    • 1-2 units: all units to party administration fund
    • 3 units is split: 2 to admin, 1 to branch
    • 4-5 units is split: 3-4 to admin, 1 to branch
    • 6 units is split: 4 to admin, 2 to branch

Conclusion

We believe the structure proposed is a fair system to support the greatest degree of member participation in as many functions of the party as possible.