Anning’s bankrupt candidate ineligible

Anti-mosque campaigner Julie Hoskin is ineligible for the federal election.

Far-right senator Fraser Anning’s candidate for the Victorian seat of Bendigo is an undischarged bankrupt, making her ineligible to nominate for the May 18 federal election.

Former Bendigo councillor Julie Hoskin formally nominated for the central Victorian lower house seat yesterday, having completed the Australian Electoral Commission’s new qualification checklist relating to section 44 of the Constitution, which required her to tick a box saying she was not “currently an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent”.

However, the anti-mosque campaigner’s trustee, RSM Australia partner David Kerr, confirmed to The Australian last night that she remained an undischarged bankrupt.

“Yes, she is,” he said.

“She has lodged an appeal against the sequestration order and I believe that is going to be heard in July.”

Australian Financial Security Authority and federal court documents indicate Ms Hoskin was declared bankrupt on September 20, 2018, owing $92,136 to her former solicitor, Robert Balzola.

A day later, she resigned as a councillor for the City of Greater Bendigo.

Mr Balzola acted for Ms Hoskin and other anti-mosque campaigners in a long-running and ultimately unsuccessful legal bid to prevent Muslims from building Bendigo’s first mosque.

Ms Hoskin did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesman for Senator Anning’s Conservative National Party failed to respond to questions regarding Ms Hoskin before deadline.

Senator Anning himself narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2017 after creditors officially withdrew their petition against him over debts he owed a subsidiary of the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank as a result of a failed agribusiness scheme.

Publicly available documents show self-described bank victim advocate Rita Mazalevskis, listed second on Senator Anning’s ticket for the Victorian Senate, is a former bankrupt.

A spokesman for the Australian Electoral Commission said Ms Hoskin’s situation was similar to that of former WA One Nation-turned-independent senator Rod Culleton, who was disqualified from sitting in parliament by the High Court due to his bankruptcy.

The AEC yesterday declared Mr Culleton as a candidate, despite his ongoing bankruptcy.

“The provisions of the Electoral Act do not give the AEC or any AEC officer the power to reject a fully completed candidate nomination for the Senate or the House of Representatives, regardless of whether any answer to a question of the qualification checklist is incorrect, false or inadequate,” the AEC said in a statement.

“This includes whether or not the completed candidate nomination form may contain a false declaration as to the eligibility of that person to stand for election.”

The AEC has referred Mr Culleton’s candidate nomination form to the Australian Federal Police in light of his prior disqualification by the High Court “to examine if a false declaration has been made”.