The challenge against party signs in electoral commission colours at federal poll doesn’t stack up, says barrister for Gladys Liu and Josh Frydenberg

Lawyers for the Liberal party have said it was “laughable” to suggest people would have changed their mind on how to vote at the 2019 federal election based on a polling station sign in Australian Electoral Commission colours.

The federal court, acting as the court of disputed returns, is hearing whether two signs written in Chinese characters used at polling booths in the electorates of Chisholm and Kooyong at May’s election should lead to the results being voided – a move that would force the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, and MP Gladys Liu to a byelection in those seats.

The signs, in the AEC’s purple and white colours, told voters “the correct voting method” was to put 1 next to the Liberal candidate and then number the rest of the boxes. It had an authorisation at the bottom in small text from the Liberal party, but no logo.

AEC argues Chinese-language election signs could not have swayed voters Read more

The applicants, Kooyong candidate Oliver Yates and climate campaigner Vanessa Garbett, have argued the signs breached section 329(1) of the Electoral Act, which makes it an offence to print material likely to deceive a voter. In previous cases the law has been interpreted narrowly, prohibiting the misleading of voters in relation to the process of casting their vote but not banning otherwise misleading or untruthful material.

On the third and final day of hearings on Friday, the barrister for Liu and Frydenberg, Philip Solomon QC, said the petitioners were arguing there was a subsection of Chinese-speaking voters in the two electorates who “attended a polling booth to vote steeled to vote one way, and [based on the sign] determined that they were being commanded when casting their ballot to vote for the Liberal party”.

He said the case being put forward by the petitioners was unsustainable. “I don’t mean to be dramatic, but that’s laughable.”

Solomon’s argument echoed that put forward by the AEC the day before. He said Yates and Garbett had not produced one voter who had been misled by the signs.

“It’s not part of the petitioner’s proof to establish that even one Chinese reader attended at a polling place, read the corflute, voted Liberal and afterwards came to understand it wasn’t a command and their vote had been impinged or impaired accordingly,” Solomon said.

On day one of the hearing, the acting Liberal party state director in Victoria at the time of the election, Simon Frost, admitted the corflutes were designed to give the impression they were AEC signs.

On Friday, Solmon said Yates and Garbett wanted the judges to rule that the Liberal party should not have used the signs, but the question before the court was simply whether voters were likely to have been deceived by it.

“There was no suggestion to Mr Frost that he was seeking to do that or that he achieved [that],” he said.

Solomon argued that even if the petitions were dismissed, the court should not “criticise” Frost in its judgment, noting that Labor had used signs in similar colours at the Bennelong by-election in December 2017.

The Liberal candidates are seeking the dismissal of both cases, with costs awarded to them.

The judges reserved their decision.