Electoral Commission takes Andrew Laming to court over Facebook posts
Controversial government MP Andrew Laming is being hauled to court by the Australian Electoral Commission over Facebook posts made in the lead up to the 2019 poll.
He is accused of contravening Commonwealth requirements by publishing material under a “Redland Hospital: Let’s fight for fair funding” Facebook page without adequately disclosing his political links.
The Australian Electoral Commission on Tuesday said it had begun Federal Court proceedings against the MP for the Brisbane bayside seat of Bowman.
It issued a statement saying that Laming’s actions “contravened the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 requirement that material promoting one candidate or political party over another comply with the authorisation requirements of the Act”.
“The AEC will not be making any further comment as this matter is now before the Court.”
Laming indicated he would seek to resolve the case through conciliation.
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“While the integrity of political communication must be safeguarded, these five posts amount to just two per cent of the page posts, with an average reach of six people,” he said.
“The entire page is less than one per cent of the reach of my AEC-authorised pages.”
The MP ran various community Facebook pages at the time requirements for social media authorisation tightened.
“Where there was perceived doubt at the time, individual posts on this page were correctly authorised,” he said.
“I do not dispute the AEC view that the page did in-effect promote me and was critical of another political party, and for those reasons, page authorisation should have occurred and for that I apologise.”
