The Australian Electoral Commission has launched court action against a man it alleges is responsible for nearly 50,000 illegal pamphlets that targeted teal independent Allegra Spender in the lead-up to this year’s federal election.
The 47,000 leaflets were distributed throughout Spender’s eastern Sydney electorate of Wentworth during the election campaign, making what the MP labelled at the time as “false, misleading and offensive claims” about her.
Crucially, they didn’t include any authorisation identifying who was behind the campaign, which is illegal under Australian electoral law.
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The AEC released a statement today alleging that the man responsible for the pamphlets is Jarrod Davis.
The commission claimed he spent around $17,500 printing and distributing them.
It has launched action against Davis in the Federal Court, alleging he breached the Commonwealth Electoral Act by failing to include his name and address on the pamphlets.
“Australia’s democracy is rightly regarded as world leading, and central to that integrity is the ability for any voter to know the source of electoral advertising through authorisation messages,” Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said.
“The AEC takes cases involving the complete absence of authorisation information and its widespread dissemination particularly seriously.”
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Failing to properly authorise election material can attract a fine of up to $39,600 per offence.
The AEC has not said what penalty, if any, it will seek against Davis.
Alarm about the pamphlets was first raised on April 21 – a day before early voting in the federal election began.
Two days later, the AEC announced it had identified the person responsible for them and that it had received an undertaking they would not distribute any more of the pamphlets or other unauthorised material during the campaign, although it did not publicly name Davis at the time.
Spender went on to comfortably retain her seat at the election.
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