Victorian election: Liberals lodge ‘criminal conduct’ complaint over teals

Climate 200, founder Simon Holmes a Court and four teal candidates accused of effectively operating as a party, in breach of the Electoral Act.

The Liberals accuse Simon Holmes a Court, the group entities and the candidates of ‘carrying out a scheme with the intention of circumventing the general cap on political ­donations’. Picture: Josie Hayden

The Liberal Party has lodged a formal complaint with the Victorian Electoral Commission, accusing Climate 200, its founder, Simon Holmes a Court, four teal independent candidates and their associated entities of “criminal conduct”.

The Liberals accuse the fundraising vehicle and the independents it is backing of effectively operating as a party, in contravention of the Electoral Act.

In a letter to Victorian Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately in October, lawyers for the Liberal Party asked the commission to investigate Mr Holmes a Court, Climate 200 and three ­proprietary limited companies it deems “Teal Party group ­entities”, namely Kew Independents, Hawthorn Independents and Mornington Peninsula Independents.

Melissa Lowe. Source: Facebook

The Liberals also listed Climate 200-backed Kew candidate Sophie Torney, Hawthorn candidate Melissa Lowe, Caulfield candidate Nomi Kaltmann and Mornington candidate Kate Lardner.

“Publicly available information appears to indicate that Mr Holmes a Court, the teal party group entities, and the teal candidates have contravened, and are continuing to contravene, section 218B of the (Electoral) Act,” writes HR Legal partner Dan Feldman, acting for the Victorian Liberals.

“Section 218B is a criminal offence which, if contravened, warrants punishment of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.”

The Liberals accuse Mr Holmes a Court, the group entities and the candidates of “carrying out a scheme with the intention of circumventing the general cap on political ­donations” by “artificially portraying” the entities as “third party ­campaigners”, and the candidates as independent “rather than as part of the same political party”.

The letter details the sharing of resources including advertising, events, expenditure, personnel and suppliers between the Kew and Hawthorn campaigns, and the similar design and messaging on their electoral material, as well as Climate 200’s role in endorsing and soliciting political donations for each of the candidates.

It also notes a series of donations made to all four independent candidates.

Under Victoria’s donations laws, it is legal for a person to donate up to $4320 to each of Ms Torney, Ms Lowe, Ms Kaltmann and Dr Lardner, but not to exceed the $4320 cap in combined donations to candidates running with the endorsement of a party.

Sophie Torney, the independent candidate for Kew, in Balwyn North campaigning for the Victorian state election. Picture: David Crosling

However, parties and candidates are able to set up a “nominated entity” that is exempt from the donations cap, which in the case of the Liberals is the Cormack Foundation, worth more than $100m.

The Liberals have also asked the VEC to investigate whether Climate 200 is providing in-kind political donations to the candidates’ campaigns, including paying salaries, directors’ fees, or other campaign expenses.

The letter asked the VEC to “take immediate action to require relevant parties referred to … to cease fundraising activities while the VEC is investigating.”

A spokeswoman for the VEC said its investigations into the ­Liberals’ complaint were ongoing.

“We will not provide any commentary in respect to complaints, but we can say that our inquiries into this complaint will not be completed before election day,” she said.

Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay said the Liberals’ claims were “utterly unfounded”.

“Climate 200 is nothing like a party,” Mr Fay said.

“It has no members, branches, policies nor candidates.

“Climate 200 merely supports community-led independent campaigns that share a basic set of values with our 11,500 donors

“The Liberals wrote to the VEC over three weeks ago.

“The fact we haven’t been contacted by the commission since then speaks volumes.

“We saw similar vexatious behaviour from the Liberal Party at the recent federal election — a string of baseless complaints, manufactured for the media, amounting to nothing. It’s a campaign tactic designed to waste everyone’s time.

“The major parties make the electoral laws in this state – not Climate 200, which is scrupulous in abiding by the letter of the law.

“The parties have built a $100m publicly funded wall around elections, protecting their duopoly and shutting out challengers.

“The major parties have already received $35 million in funding from the taxpayer based on the votes they received in 2018, another $16 million for head office costs, and $48 million in electorate office and communications budgets.

“In addition, the Liberal Party has access to $100 million in uncapped donations from the Cormack Foundation.

“Meanwhile, independent challengers start with no public funding and are limited to tight donation caps. It’s as if the system was designed to entrench incumbency.”