After winning 7.1 per cent of Swedish votes in this year's European Parliament elections, The Pirate Party has opened up a branch in Australia and plans to contest the next federal election.

The party, which will campaign on a platform of anti-internet censorship and the decriminalisation of non-commercial file sharing, has already signed up 550 members, enough for it to register as a party with the Australian Electoral Commission.

A Pirate Party demonstration in Sweden.

It plans to hold internal elections for leadership positions - president, general secretary, treasurer and their deputies - on October 7.

But party spokesman Brendan Molloy was quick to point out that free file sharing was only one aspect of the overall mission, which was to "bolster our nation's Democratic conventions".