Topher Field@TopherField
The Victorian Electoral Commission have contacted me to make legal threats concerning my public commentary on the @LiberalVictoria campaign material which was in my opinion deceptive and designed to be confused with @PaulineHansonOz and the @OneNationAus Party.
The VEC are demanding I take that material down because I'm not willing to dox myself by publishing my home address for all the world to see, I instead published my suburb, and as a public figure I can be contacted a bunch of different ways... an exact street address would make absolutely NO difference to anyone... except to expose me to stalking, harassment, or targeted violence.
A few things:
1. the Liberal Party were given the VEC's A-OK to use One Nation colours and produce a piece of campaign material that was designed and intended to not appear to be a piece of Liberal Party campaign material. Literally the ONLY thing linking this material to the Liberal Party is the Authorisation statement, and you'd have to use google to figure out that it was the Liberals because a name and address doesn't tell you a damn thing about a damn thing.
Apparently that's ok.
2. I produced a video exposing their dirty tricks, and I complied as fully with the law as I could without putting my personal safety, and that of my family, at risk, but now I'm the one on the receiving end of legal threats.
What this shows is twofold:
1. Current Victorian electoral law is no longer fit for purpose in an age of social media where we're ALL commentating all the time and the line between private and professional commentary is all but non-existent.
2. The Victorian Electoral Commission is ok with deceptive practices as long as they tick the right boxes, but not ok with EXPOSING deceptive practices because the box is only 90% ticked. This is literally government logic in a nutshell. You can get away with anything if you keep the bureaucrats happy...
3. How is this not a suppression of the implied right to political communication for anyone who does not have a 3rd party address to list on anything political that they post? (ie, 90% of the population) It disenfranchises anyone without a non-residential address from commenting on politics right at the moment in time when it matters most... an election.
I don't believe any electoral laws anywhere in Australia were written at a time when it was possible for literally anyone to reach literally everyone from the comfort of their lounge room, and the laws need to be updated to reflect this new reality.
Do the VEC really believe it's not clear who is responsible for the material? The purpose of authorisations is to remove ambiguity and ensure integrity in elections... do they really think it's ambiguous in my case?
Or is the truth really that the Victorian Liberal Party stumbled across it and complained because THEY were trying to get away with being deceptive and I was exposing them?
The upshot? The VEC are now doing more to protect deceptive practices than they are to expose them. Classic government.
Annoyingly the VEC didn't even provide links to the videos across all the platforms, now I have to waste my time finding them and either removing or making them private till after the Nepean election just to keep a bureaucrat happy.
I would absolutely LOVE to give the VEC a proper hard time over this, if nothing else to get them to pull their fingers out and make recommendations to parliament to update the laws so they catch up with the 21st century.
Any legal eagles ready or able to give me some thoughts? I note, for example, that they've failed to provide a reference number on the document, something which I suspect puts them in breach of their own internal rules and might be something I could have some fun with... Ideas welcome.
