Taxpayers to foot climate campaigner’s court costs over misleading election day corflutes

The woman who took action over misleading election posters won’t pay her costs but Oliver Yates should, court finds.

Mandarin-language election signs instructing Chinese voters how to vote Liberal were used in Melbourne. Picture: Twitter

The woman who took legal action against Chisholm MP Gladys Liu over misleading election posters that resembled Australian Electoral Commission signs should have her costs paid by taxpayers, a court has found.

However the court found Oliver Yates, an independent who ran against treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong, should pay his own costs for his separate legal action.

The Chinese-language Liberal Party signage used in the electorates of Chisholm and Kooyong featured the colour scheme traditionally used by the AEC and instructed voters that the “correct” voting method was to put a “1” next to the Liberal candidate.

The Federal Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, accepted a number of arguments raised by climate campaigner Vanessa Garbett against Ms Liu and Mr Yates.

Oliver Yates. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The court however decided in December that too few voters would have been influenced by the signage to make a difference to the result either in Kooyong (Mr Frydenberg’s margin is 11,000 votes) or even in Ms Liu’s tightly contested seat which she won by 1090 votes.

On Thursday the court released its judgment on costs, finding costs incurred by Ms Garbett, Ms Liu and Mr Frydenberg should be paid by the Commonwealth.

However it found Mr Yates should pay his own costs.

“We consider that there was both public importance and public benefit in the issues thrown

up by the petitions being ventilated and decided,” the judgment said.

“That did not, however, require two petitions; and it certainly did not require a second petition where it was necessary to demonstrate that over 5000 votes were affected by the conduct in question for substantive relief to be given about Mr Frydenberg’s election.”

The court found the petitions concerned conduct that might be seen to undermine the AEC’s independence and could be viewed as public benefit and not just as a matter of public importance.

The court found former Victorian Liberal Party state director Simon Frost, now a senior adviser to Mr Frydenberg, authorised the corflutes and the corflutes were likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of a vote.

However it did not refer him to the High Court because it didn’t make findings and the proceedings didn’t address any fault element to allow any conclusion that Mr Frost acted in a way that may be said to amount to the committal of an offence.

“Given the limited nature of our findings in the December reasons and the way the hearing of

the petitions was conducted we are not in a position to draw such conclusion about Mr Frost’s state of mind and knowledge and it would be unfair on him so to do,” the judgment said.

The AEC was ordered to pay its own costs.