In the marginal Victorian seat of Chisholm Liberal candidate Gladys Liu won a narrow victory in a seat with a large Chinese speaking population and a lot of official-looking signage which, at first place, appeared to be from the Australian Electoral Commission but advised (in Mandarin) that voters should put the Liberals first.
Around the nation Clive Palmer ran ads claiming that he and the United Australia Party was going form government and has since declared that his entire $50 million+ campaign was about scaring people off voting Labor.
你坐在一個謊言的寶座上
Unions put fake eviction notices on Coalition MPs offices and real estate companies sent our fake eviction notices to tenants warning that Labor would force up their rents.
One Nation ran online campaigns claiming that Labor were planning to bring in “death taxes”. Meanwhile there were Labor campaigns about the Liberals cutting health spending versus Liberals warning against Labor’s “retirement tax”.
So, here’s a fun question: is it legal to straight-up lie in elections?
And the answer is yes. Yes, it is.
This is despite the existence of 329(1) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act which is subheaded “Misleading or deceptive publications etc.”
A person shall not, during the relevant period in relation to an election under this Act, print, publish or distribute, or cause, permit or authorize to be printed, published or distributed, any matter or thing that is likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of a vote.
And the Australian Electoral Commission received over 500 complaints about false or misleading advertisements over the election campaign and substantiated 87 of those as being in breach. And the punishment being meted out is… um, nothing.
Why? Because in 1981 the High Court took a very, very, very narrow interpretation of the legislation which basically ruled that it’s fine to trick someone into voting for someone by telling them lies, but not to trick them into marking their physical ballot paper incorrectly.
This may strike you as a distinction without a difference – especially since those Chinese posters in Chisholm specifically directed voters to mark their ballot in a particular way – but the important thing is that the courts have effectively decided that Australian elections should rely upon each individual voter investigating all the information to which they are exposed from political parties in order to establish that it is accurate in order that they then make an informed vote on that basis.
Yeah. That’s definitely going to happen. Democracy is saved!