This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor has lodged a formal Australian Electoral Commission complaint and sought a federal court injunction over signs in the marginal Melbourne electorate of Chisholm.

The posters, written in traditional Chinese characters and using the purple and white AEC colours, tell voters the correct way to vote is to put a “1” next to the Liberal candidate and then number the rest of the boxes from lowest to highest.

Fine print at the bottom of the signs says they were authorised by Simon Frost for the Liberal party’s Victoria division.

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Photos of the signs were shared earlier on Saturday by the secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, Luke Hilakari, who described them as a “massive rort”.

The Liberal party candidate in Chisholm is Gladys Liu, who has attracted some controversy throughout the campaign around comments she made in 2016, and campaigns conducted in 2016 on Chinese social media network WeChat.

Labor’s candidate is Jennifer Yang. Both lead candidates are Chinese-Australian.

A Labor campaign spokeswoman confirmed the party had lodged an official complaint with the AEC.

“This is a new low – a pathetic and dirty attempt to deceive voters because the Liberals have no policy to talk about.”

But the AEC has said the signs are within the rules because they were authorised and there were no rules regarding the use of colour in campaign signage.

Later on Saturday the ALP made an application with the federal court seeking further action.

Guardian Australia sought comment from the Liberal party.

Liu told Sky News they were “good signs” and defended their use.

“The sign has been approved and authorised by the state director of the Liberal party,” she said. “I think that this is a good sign to have to inform people to vote.”