Tuesday, 15 October 2024

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (13:06): (1144) My question is for the Minister for Local Government, and it relates to candidates in my electorate that have raised concerns about the conduct of the Local Government Inspectorate. My constituent, who offered two tickets to a concert for people to like and share his page to promote his own candidacy, was contacted by the inspectorate about his post. It was alleged his post breached election guidelines. When contacted he was immediately threatened with five years jail – imprisonment. When asked to have a meeting with the inspectorate, he agreed to do so immediately. After a long meeting and tense discussions, my constituent happily agreed to remove the offending Facebook post despite not asking for a vote or how to direct votes; it was merely to promote his candidacy. He would have done so first up had it been raised with him appropriately. So I ask the minister: will she look into this heavy-handed conduct of the inspectorate to ensure that jumping to threats and jail time does not happen first up? An appropriate approach which tries to work with the candidate might be better than dealing with candidates in such a punitive way.