Victorian Trades Hall Council forced to apologise to the electoral watchdog for unauthorised posters

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Unions were forced to apologise to the electoral watchdog after posting unauthorised fake eviction notices on the offices of two Liberal MPs in marginal Victorian seats.

The mock eviction notices were recently put up at the offices of Sarah Henderson, the Liberal MP for Corangamite, and Gladys Liu, a candidate for Chisholm.

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“Our records show that you have fallen into severe and irrevocable arrears in relation to your delivery of government services to the people of Corangamite,” one of the notices read.

“You are hereby ordered to vacate the Office of the Member for Corangamite by no later than May 2019.”

A fake eviction notice posted on the office of Sarah Henderson, a Liberal MP in the marginal seat of Corangamite, Victoria.

The eviction notices were clearly part of a union campaign, and included the Victorian Trades Hall Council’s “We are union” logo.

But the posters failed to contain the proper authorisations, as required by electoral law. Such laws help the public properly discern who is behind the content, and allow authorities to track political communications and hold individuals responsible.

The Liberals made a complaint to the Australian Electoral Commission, which contacted the council to warn it over the lack of authorisation. The council apologised to the AEC and promised it would not happen again.

A spokeswoman for the council said it was an “oversight”, but said it was “explicitly clear” that the notices were produced by the Victorian union movement. She said the council had also posted about the action on Facebook.

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“We can understand that the Liberal MPs don’t like them very much. That does not worry us,” she said.

“We indeed heard about the missed authorisation line from the AEC. All our past materials have been authorised, this was an oversight.”

The AEC confirmed it had approached the council about the eviction notices but did not otherwise comment.