Peter Harris Senior leader of the Australian Federation Party is ‘calling out a dirty election.’ In a video posted on-line he said the Australian people have had enough of “Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese in relation to their meddling with the Australian electoral system.”
Harris said traditionally the Australian Electoral Commissions role has been to protect the Australian people and ensure the running of fair elections, however, claims that the AEC are in cahoots with Labour and Liberal parties to make sure this doesn’t happen.
In what has been labelled an undemocratic move by the Morrison government, political parties have only been given ten days to nominate ‘bulk candidates’ which includes the easter period.
The AEC have set a deadline for ‘bulk nominations’ for 12 noon next Tuesday which Harris says is two days short of the ten days legally required in the writs issued by the Prime Minister.
Harris said the AEC have determined that parties who want to nominate more than one candidate, or nominate bulk candidates, will now only have eight days after the writs were issued by the Prime Minister, saying it is unlawful and that the AEC are ‘implementing legislation which is anti-democracy.’
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, candidate nominations will close Friday 22 April, however ‘bulk nominations’ must be made to the AEO for the appropriate state or territory and must be received 48 hours before the hour of nomination, meaning two days of nomination time will be lost.
As if the constrained timeframes were not bad enough Mr Harris said that the “AEC will not answer calls to discuss the serious legal questions about the election.’ He mentioned they did however have the time to send out notices demanding that all parties now put an authorisation on every social media post.
All parties except Scott Morrison, other Liberal candidates, the Labour Party, and the Greens it would seem, as a check of their social media posts show no authorisations.
Other parties such as Reignite Democracy Australia have also received notices from the AEC stating all material must be authorised.
Mr Harris also called out the recent deregistration of parties based on a measure of membership numbers.
Since 11 June 2021 there have been 22 parties have deregistered by the AEC, and further cuts are being considered.
Party registration applications have also ceased. In a Notice, the AEC states “Due to the issue of the writs for a federal election to be held on 21 May 2022, the AEC must cease processing of party registration applications. Processing of applications will recommence on the return of the writs. The date set for return of the writs is on or before 28 June 2022.
With everything Australians have endured over the last two years, at the very least, we deserve a fair election and process. But whether we get one is yet to be seen, and Mr Harris certainly doesn’t think we will.
‘There is no intention for a fair election’, Harris said calling this the “dirtiest election Australia has ever run, with the AEC playing a game and making it as difficult as possible to get a fair outcome.”
“The Australian people are going to contest this election no matter what the outcome. The Australian people will contest it because of the unlawful behaviour of the Australian Electoral Commission, and the unlawful behaviour is unacceptable to the Australian people.”
Ever since we’ve had preferential votes we’ve not had a fair vote, I say the two major parties have been cheating, so we need to get rid of preferential votes. ONE VOTE PER PERSON PAST THE POST.