One of the co-founders, Fred Nile, a Congregational Church minister, ran as their upper house candidate in the NSW State election.

[6][7] Originally established as the "Call to Australia Party" in 1977, the CDP was founded by a group of Christian ministers, and Fred Nile ran as their candidate.

[10] In August 2000, it was announced that Elaine Nile would retire due to ill health and be replaced by John Bradford, a former Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from Queensland who had defected to the CDP before being defeated at the 1998 Federal election.

With Nile's return to the New South Wales Legislative Council, Moyes began to question the leadership of his former party leader.

[verification needed] During the 2007 New South Wales state election, the CDP called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration to Australia, seeking to replace them with "persecuted Christians from the Middle East".

In the meantime, Australia should extend a welcoming hand to many thousands of persecuted Christians who are presently displaced or at risk in the Middle East.

[citation needed] Moyes argued that Nile's anti-homosexual, anti-abortion and anti-Muslim focus should be altered and that greater emphasis be placed on environmental issues.

[18] In February 2009, Nile wrote in his monthly newsletter that he regretted allowing Moyes to take his wife's place upon her retirement "because of his disloyalty and divisive actions and his frequent support of the Greens".

Eternity News reported that the coup by Samraat was partially instigated by succession issues, such as when Fred Nile allegedly reneged on a promise to hand over his parliamentary seat to Ross Clifford, Principal of the Baptist Morling College, resulting in the party losing 80 branches in a year, including four interstate organisations.

[38] On 12 April 2021 Fred Nile announced that he would be retiring from parliament in November, and named Lyle Shelton as a candidate to replace his seat in the Legislative Council.

[39] Nile withdrew his endorsement of Shelton in September 2021 due to "irreconcilable differences" between the two, and announced that he would remain in parliament until 2023 to complete his parliamentary term.

[43][44] The party is supportive of family values (including traditional marriage), freedom of speech, protective of children and their rights including those of unborn children, and policies that are protective of established Australian values and systems, inclusive of a requirement that immigrants to Australia demonstrate a desire to learn English.

They support an adequately "remunerated job" to allow for "a balance between work and non-work times" and have an emphasis on "the financial well-being of each person in [the] community".

"[50] The Christian Democrats also support strong infrastructure programs for roads, bridges, hospitals, airports, waterways and power supplies.

[50] The party and a candidate, Peter Madden, came under intense opposition from their policies and political campaign actions by the Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL).

[53] Their campaign to have the Sydney Mardi Gras banned because of, as he puts it, "the lifestyle and perversion that it promotes" saw opposition from the RSL as one of their campaign YouTube videos, which featured Madden, labelled a "battle cry", calls upon "10,000 warriors" to rally against the event and shows Madden in front of the Anzac War Memorial in Hyde Park inviting viewers to become "lions" and join him.

[53] The NSW RSL president, Don Rowe, said that returned servicemen and women and the public as a whole find it "totally offensive" that anyone would use the image of the War Memorial to make a political statement.

[53] Don Rowe said to The Sydney Morning Herald, "I am neither a supporter nor a detractor of the Mardi Gras and the RSL has no official position on it, but we totally disapprove of the use of the War Memorial in a politicised way.

It is a sacred site and symbolises those Australians who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country and for our freedoms … not for someone trying to make a political stand."

[56] The CDP has built a small but stable electoral base among Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants, as well as religious minorities, in New South Wales,[57] particularly in the "Bible Belt" suburbs of north-western Sydney and in some country areas, but the CDP has only achieved modest results in its attempts to expand its electoral base further.

[citation needed] The Christian Democratic Party generally had two (sometimes three) sitting members in the New South Wales Legislative Council at any one time.

[citation needed] The restructuring of the Legislative Council in 1991 meant that Bignold's seat was abolished and she was forced to an early election; but she failed in her bid for re-election.