Parliament deals a blow to dummy council candidates

Shadow Minister for Planning, David Davis

Clause 38 of the Local Government (Electoral) Regulations 2016 was today disallowed by the Legislative Council.  Clause 38 relates to the insertion of how-to-vote cards in councils’ postal electoral packs.

Quotes attributable to the Shadow Minister for Planning, David Davis MP:
The armies of dummy candidates lining up to run in this year’s council elections will have to think again.

Removing how-to-vote cards from the postal pack will mean “stooge” and “dummy” candidates running to harvest votes and preference them to a lead candidate will face bigger obstacles.  They will have to distribute their own material on the internet, by advertisements or by letterbox.

The Petro Georgiou review of local government in 2014 recommended how-to-vote cards should be removed from the voting pack (Recommendation 26).

The VEC electoral officials should not be distributing how-to-vote cards, that should be a matter for candidates to distribute.

Removal of how-to-vote material from the postal voting pack will discourage candidates who are not genuinely seeking to be elected to office.

Media contact:  David Davis                  0419 000 212         david.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au