Rod Culleton, who is attempting a comeback, and Huw Kingston, who is running in Angus Taylor’s seat, highlight potential ineligibility

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The former One Nation senator Rodney Culleton and Huw Kingston, the independent challenging energy minister Angus Taylor in the New South Wales seat of Hume, have blasted the Australian Electoral Commission for failing to investigate the potential ineligibility of Clive Palmer’s United Australia party candidates.

Kingston, whose UAP opponent in the seat south of Sydney is under a cloud, suggested it was “mad” there were no penalties for ineligible candidates, while Culleton, who was elected to the Senate for One Nation but found ineligible, has accused the AEC of “bias” for not investigating UAP.

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The AEC has confirmed to Guardian Australia that “all candidates appearing on the ballot paper are eligible for public funding” provided they win 4% of the first-preference vote, suggesting candidates will not even have their eligibility checked before they receive taxpayer funding.

At least 18 of Palmer’s candidates have signed checklists that state their parents or grandparents were born overseas but fail to declare their places of birth.

The candidate for Hume, Lynda Abdo, told Guardian Australia she declared four times to the UAP that her parents were born in Syria and Lebanon before the party submitted blank forms without their place of birth to the AEC.

A spokesman for the AEC said it had “has no power to go behind or question the information that is provided in the qualification checklist”.

Kingston said there “doesn’t seem to be any payback if you haven’t filled [the checklist] in correctly”.

“It’s a ponderous process. [The AEC] asks you to fill out the form, then they just throw their hands up and say it doesn’t matter if it is filled in correctly or not.

“It just seems mad that nothing can be done for all these candidates who have questions with their citizenship or section 44 issues.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Huw Kingston says it is ‘mad’ there are no penalties for ineligible candidates. Photograph: Huw4Hume/ Facebook

Kingston said there should be “some sort of follow-up” short of candidates challenging others in the high court, such as the AEC being given powers to require further documentation and evidence before accepting a nomination.

Kingston said if Taylor relied on UAP preferences to get re-elected “then whoever was second or third might usefully wish to challenge; they would feel honour bound to do so”.

Culleton, who was found to be ineligible to stand at the last election due to a conviction (later annulled) and found to be an undischarged bankrupt by the federal court, is attempting a political comeback leading the Great Australia party and will be on the ballot in Western Australia despite his legal issues.

In April, the AEC referred Culleton to the police, citing the fact he is still listed as an undischarged bankrupt on the national personal insolvency index and may therefore have breached the criminal code with a false declaration on his nomination form.

Culleton told Guardian Australia: “I’m not sure why they have taken a harsh stance against myself and are letting the others basically go under the radar.”

“On the face of it, it’s biased,” he said, questioning why the AEC had been quick to “spear” him but not Clive Palmer’s candidates.

The AEC spokesman said Culleton’s referral was made “due to the high profile of the particular bankruptcy case” and the ready availability of the insolvency index to check his status.

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“The AEC has no authority to make any determination about the contents of the checklist (ie whether the information is incorrect, false or inaccurate) but merely to ensure that each of the mandatory questions has been answered.”

The UAP candidate for the NSW seat of Blaxland, Nadeem Ashraf, told the AEC he believed he lost dual Pakistani citizenship automatically when he became Australian, even though Pakistani law requires a declaration of renunciation, which Ashraf failed to provide.

A spokesman for the UAP has said “all [candidates] are eligible and compliant under s44”, but failed to explain why they had not completed the checklist. The spokesman noted the AEC had “accepted all of our nomination forms”.

Ashraf told Guardian Australia he renounced Pakistani citizenship in 2013 but failed to account for the discrepancy with his AEC checklist.

Abdo said she did not have a problem with dual citizenship. “We spoke to the Syrian embassy – they are at civil war – and we went through the checklist.”