Minister steps in to ban handing out election material at booths Logan limits volunteers and election watchdog dismisses ‘misleading’ pay rise complaint

Logan voters will have to pick up their own how-to-vote cards after a limit was put on the number of people at polling booths in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

Logan mayoral candidates at this afternoon’s meeting which decided to limit the number of volunteers at polling booths in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus.

LOGAN voters will have to pick up their own how-to-vote cards after the state government ordered volunteers to stop handing out campaign material this morning.

mayoral candidates imposed a limit on the number of people handing out election material at early polling booths.

Candidates and their helpers in Queensland’s local government elections have been directed to stop handing out how-to-vote cards.

Local Government Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said under new powers introduced in Parliament this week, the Electoral Commission of Queensland had issued the Directive to all candidates to find other ways to display their how-to-vote information.

Logan Returning Officer Ray Langler met with seven of the city’s eight mayoral candidates at Slacks Creek on Thursday to discuss banning campaign volunteers at booths.

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It was decided that each candidate would only have one volunteer at each booth.

Candidates will be able to display one A4 sign and a box for their election material at the front door of all five booths.

All mayoral spruikers were banned but all signs outside booths can remain.

Mr Langler was also arranging meetings with the city’s 58 councillor candidates to decide whether to ban councillor election material from booths.

The meeting with Mr Langler came after mayoral candidates John Freeman and Stewart Fleming proposed solutions for social distancing.

Returning Officer Ray Langler takes a latter from mayoral candidate John Freeman asking for volunteers to be banned at booths.

“We are in uncharted times and, as leaders, we should be endeavouring to do everything in our power to send a clear message to the community that their health and safety is important.”

Mr Freeman was also behind a complaint which was dismissed after investigation by the newly established independent Council of Election Observer.

The complaint was that election material by another mayoral candidate, Darren Power, was misleading.

Mr Freeman said Mr Power’s election material incorrectly claimed Mr Power had stopped Logan councillors getting a 22 per cent pay rise in 2004.

ICEO chief John Robertson used stories from 2004 published in the Albert & Logan News to make his decision and dismiss the claim.

“It is clear to me from reading the extracts I could, that it was indeed Mr Power and another newly elected councillor, Mr (Aiden) McLindon, who objected to the pay rise for councillors,” the retired district court judge said.

“It is also clear to me, particularly from the extracts from the Albert & Logan News on 23 and 24 April 2004 and 19 May 2004, that it was Mr Power who led a public campaign against the pay rise, which involved residents attending to protest at Council Chambers …

“And the mayor, John Freeman, stepped in in a last-minute compromise to scale back the rise to about 11 per cent,” Mr Robertson said.

A ‘Democracry Table’ for Division 6 wher each candidate’s material is placed in a box voiding the need for volunteers handing out material.

Division 6 candidate Mike Latter said the measures to curb volunteers and how to vote cards were already in place at the Beenleigh polling station.