The campaign director for independent candidate Zoe Daniel, who is running against federal Liberal MP Tim Wilson, has launched a Supreme Court case against Bayside Council over its ban on political signs in front yards.
Bayside Council last week backflipped on a ruling it had given Ms Daniel’s campaign team in December. That ruling allowed signs to be put up in front yards around the council area, which includes suburbs such as Black Rock, Brighton, Hampton and Sandringham.
Tim Wilson and challenger Zoe Daniel.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen, Simon Schluter
Having said that signs in front yards campaigning for election candidates were exempt from planning laws, the council now argues they are banned. The council’s senior investigations officer, Steven Boyce, has threatened residents with fines if they do not remove a sign in their front yard within two days.
Ms Daniel, a former ABC journalist seeking to defeat Mr Wilson at the federal election expected in May, said front yard signs must be allowed.
“Freedom of political expression is sacrosanct,” Ms Daniel said on Thursday. Her campaign director Keith Badger, an accountant from Brighton, lodged the Supreme Court challenge to the council ruling on Wednesday.
Mr Wilson said: “Council has advised us that if our supporters erect signs they will be in breach of the law and will get fined, so we have complied with the law”.
“We just want a consistent rule, not one that rewards opponents for breaking the law.
“If any candidate’s campaign wants to spend donor’s money on court cases then that’s up to them, we are focused on delivering for our community and quite happy to wait until the official election campaign to put up our signs”.
The council last week issued a notice, which it said was based on Australian Electoral Commission advice, that banned front yard signs being put up until a federal election was called for the lower house.
Despite widespread expectations that a federal election will be called by May, Bayside Council said in a statement that signs could not be put up in front yards until June 3.
“The latest possible date for a House of Representatives election [is] 3 September 2022,” the council said in its statement, citing planning laws that ban political signs in front yards until an election is formally called.
Bayside Council, contacted on Thursday morning for further comment on how much the fines would be, and why it had decided to issue the warnings, after having said in December that signs were exempt from planning laws, declined to respond further, pointing only to its Friday statement. “We won’t be making any further comments at this time,” a council communications officer said.
An email sent on December 10 last year by Bayside’s director of city planning, Matthew Cripps, said that election signage “is exempt from needing a planning permit”.
Ms Daniel’s lawyers will argue in court that the council’s interpretation of state regulations was contrary to the implied freedom of political communication in Australia, and was contrary to previous advice from Council. They will also argue that it was contrary to the practice of other councils in Melbourne with an identical planning scheme.
Neighbouring council Glen Eira has not brought any action against residents in its suburbs who have put up signs in support of Ms Daniel, or any other candidates.
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