Signs in the electorates of Josh Frydenberg and Gladys Liu were in Electoral Commission colours but urged a vote for the Liberal party

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Challenges to the election of embattled Liberal MP Gladys Liu and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, over allegedly misleading signs at polling booths will go to trial in the federal court.

Justice Michelle Gordon made the direction on Wednesday in the high court, sitting as the court of disputed returns, to move the matter down so it could be dealt with more efficiently.

She said the lower court would be better placed to handle issues over access to information.

Liu and Frydenberg, who hold federal seats in Victoria, are being challenged over controversial signs authorised by the Liberal party that were displayed at polling booths in their electorates of Chisholm and Kooyong on the day of May’s federal election.

They were in the Australian Electoral Commission’s official colours of purple and white, had no Liberal branding, did not refer to the Liberal candidates or policies, and were in Chinese.

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The translation of the words was: “The right way to vote: On the green ballot paper fill in 1 next to the candidate of Liberal Party and fill in the numbers from smallest to largest in the rest of the boxes.”

The matter has been taken to court by Oliver Yates, one of the former candidates for Frydenberg’s seat for Kooyong, and retired social worker and climate campaigner, Leslie Hall.

At a directions hearing on Wednesday, Lisa De Ferrari SC, acting for Yates and Hall said her side had hoped lawyers for the MPs would agree to hand over information.

But she said it hadn’t happened, making it necessary for the court to issue orders to help them get it.

Gordon said the court of disputed returns would not ordinarily deal with such an order, deciding instead it should go to a trial judge at the federal court.

De Ferrari said she believed the other side would be withholding either way.

“They’re going to be combative. They’re going to be combative in this court, they’re going to be combative in the federal court,” she said.

Philip Solomon QC, for Frydenberg and Liu, said his side would make “substantial admissions”.

“It may be that those admissions have the consequences that many of the documentary requests fall away,” he told the court.

But he acknowledged that “knowledge” remained an issue.