Drew Pavlou ordered to pay Brisbane City Council over $20k after court defeat

Activist Drew Pavlou has been ordered to pay more than $20,000 in court costs to Brisbane City Council after a failed appeal against his unauthorised political advertising fine.

Drew Pavlou outside Parramatta Local Court on June 8, 2022, for an unrelated matter

Activist Drew Pavlou has been ordered to pay more than $20,000 in court costs after a failed appeal against Brisbane City Council.

Mr Pavlou was fined in 2022 after displaying a “nothing happened June 4 1989 change my mind” placard in Queen St, referencing the Tiananmen Square massacre, without the Council’s approval for advertising.

He was found guilty after a Brisbane Magistrates’ Court trial in 2023 of one count each of communicating an advertising matter without consent of the Brisbane City Council and failing to comply with a direction.

The court heard at the time that Mr Pavlou also displayed a Senate sign and a political brochure, as well as the Tiananmen Square placard.

Mr Pavlou was fined $1000 on both charges and ordered to pay court costs of $2000.

No convictions were recorded.

Drew Pavlou outside Parramatta Local Court on March 13, 2023 for a hearing after he was charged with failed to comply with a move-on notice.

But he appealed the ruling in May this year on the grounds that the Tiananmen Square massacre sign had not been “advertising matter”.

Court documents revealed that Mr Pavlou argued the magistrate had erred in considering the other sign and brochure as part of the first charge, as the prosecution had agreed to specify that the charge related only to the Tiananmen Square sign.

He also argued his actions had been protected by the implied freedom of political communication under the Australian Constitution, court documents stated.

The appeal Judge Paul Smith agreed that the magistrate had made an error in considering the other sign and brochure when they were not specified in the charge.

But he found that the Tiananmen Square sign still constituted “advertising matter” and Mr Pavlou therefore was guilty.

“I consider that ‘advertising matter’ would include content of a political nature on a placard,” Judge Smith wrote in his appeal findings.

“(The Tiananmen Square sign) sought to communicate or bring to the attention or notice to the public or a section of the public, a message.”

Drew Pavlou at the polling booth in Bulimba in the 2022 election. Picture: Tertius Pickard

“In other words, it was a challenge to members of the public or a section thereof, or indeed members of the Chinese consulate, to engage in political discourse about Tiananmen Square.

“It may well have been a sardonic statement on the part of Mr Pavlou, but it was still ‘matter’.”

Judge Smith considered Mr Pavlou’s submissions that the local laws had unreasonably restricted his freedom of expression, but concluded the laws were “reasonable and appropriate”.

“The laws did not prevent free speech. They simply required a consent (easily obtainable) to exercise it,” he said.

Judge Smith dismissed the appeal.

On Monday, July 15, Judge Smith delivered a costs order that required Mr Pavlou pay $20,262 to the Brisbane City Council.

Mr Pavlou did not attend court in person on that date.

According to court documents, the sum would cover 66 per cent of the Council’s court costs.

The parties were allowed seven days to decide whether to fix costs at $20,262 or on another agreed amount.