Luke Gosling defends using image of himself in military uniform on election corflute

A Northern Territory MP has again used an image of himself in military gear on political advertising. See what the Australian Defence Force has said.

LUKE Gosling has defended using a picture of him wearing military uniform as part of his campaign for the third election in a row.

Labor’s candidate for Solomon landed in hot water and was directed to take down corflutes with a picture of him in military uniform during the 2016 federal election.

Mr Gosling then used the image of him wielding a gun during his time in the ADF during the 2019 election.

Now Mr Gosling has done it again, with corflutes appearing in recent days showing the same image, albeit digitally altered, with the tagline “Fighting for Darwin & Palmerston”.

Running for a historic third term in the Top End electorate, Mr Gosling defended his use of the image in a statement.

“Defence were only concerned by the use of the image in 2016 while I was still a member of the ADF Reserves,” he said.

“I’m no longer a member of the Army Reserves, and my use of the image is not an issue.

“Being a veteran is a huge part of my identity and I fight on those issues for our defence community here in the Territory every day.”

Despite Mr Gosling’s claim that the photo was no longer an issue, a Defence spokesman said the ADF did not approve of candidates using pictures of their military service for campaign material.

“Defence respectfully requests those standing for political office to refrain from using imagery of themselves in uniform or imagery of ADF personnel as part of any campaign material.”

Mr Gosling is far from alone in using military service in election material.

Former SAS soldier Andrew Hastie has used pictures of his military history to promote his campaign for the Perth seat of Canning for the Liberals.

Mr Hastie used corflutes with him in military uniform to promote himself as “not another politician”.

In 2015, the Defence Department considered pushing for laws to ban politicians from using military uniforms in campaign material.

Originally published as Luke Gosling defends using image of himself in military uniform on election corflute