Facebook fringe group campaigning ‘No’ #Voice breaks electoral law – #IndiVotes

A radical far right group called A Stand in the Park Benalla (ASIP Benalla) whose members include anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and WiFi conspiracy theorists are campaigning against a Voice to Parliament using campaign material that does not comply with the Electoral Act – none is “appropriately authorised“.

Primarily an anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown group, ASIP Benalla operates from a website and private Facebook group and have been referendum campaigning for at least a week.

On Saturday, 26 August the organisation ran a ‘Vote No’ stall at Benalla markets displaying a large ‘Aboriginal flag’ banner with “Vote No” printed across it – it was not appropriately authorised.

None of the electoral material handed out to voters or displayed on their stall was appropriately authorised.

This weekend the campaign group was handing out and holding up (to passing cars) unauthorised electoral material in the main shopping centre on Bridge St, Benalla.

The ASIP Benalla Facebook Group has two administrators:

• Bruce Evans (Juicey Brucey) https://www.facebook.com/groups/192622289532472/user/100009236928144/ and https://www.facebook.com/RadiationRefuge.
• Michael D Larkin https://www.facebook.com/groups/192622289532472/user/100003110206655/ and https://www.facebook.com/michaeld.larkin.10.

No Fibs: where did you get all your campaign material?
Bruce Evans: I made all this. We paid for it out of our own funds as opposed to the other people [Yes23 volunteers over the road] who are funded by various sources, a lot of corporate things, people, are sticking their noses in, where I don’t think they should be. We’ve got people like Helen Haines supporting the ‘Yes’ vote and we have other politicians that are spending our tax money on a ‘Yes’ vote.

Wrong says Benalla for Yes

We’re getting small donations from people, we sold marmalade at the stall, Aunty Cheryl makes towels for us to sell.

[No Fibs: you’re not funded by corporations?]

We’re not funded by corporations. We’re an unincorporated group. We are under the umbrella of, Yes23 which gives us things like public liability insurance and we have a major forum coming up on the 20th of September and they have contributed the rental for The Glasshouse … … they provided material [motioning towards electoral material on a table] and they provided funding for The Glasshouse – that is the only funding we’ve received.

Benalla for Yes organiser Linda Tullberg.

Cultural appropriation

No Fibs: You’re using the Aboriginal flag.
Evans: We’re not using the Aboriginal flag.
No Fibs: Well, you’re using a version of it.
Evans: We’re using it’s colours. We know what the law is regarding the flag – we’ve gone right into that.
No Fibs: You’re obviously trying to evoke the Aboriginal flag.
Evans: We haven’t got government funded lawyers to tell us how to do things.
No Fibs: Last Saturday at the markets you had an Aboriginal flag with ‘Vote No’ written on it.
Evans: And we’ve corrected it because we read the law on it. And there’s like a million other things and all of your frigging ‘Yes’ people have got Aboriginal flags with designs all over them.
No Fibs: Is that why you’re not using it today?
Evans: If someone wants to make a legal issue of it they have to do it to everyone.
No Fibs: You won’t be using that banner anymore is what you’re saying?
Evans: No. We’re not here to offend people, we’re here just to show there is another side to this story. As we’re seeing here 80 percent [wild exaggeration] of the people coming past are doing that, and that [car horn blows and person yells out]. We’re getting lots of thumbs up, we’ve had a couple of smartarses pull up and give us the finger and shout insults, but we don’t give a shit.

I get a bit annoyed about some non-Aboriginal people using the Aboriginal flag to say ‘No’.

Local Indigenous elder Aunty Patsy (Bollard)

No Fibs: Why should people vote ‘Yes’?
Aunty Patsy (Bollard): For heaven’s sake what is wrong with acknowledging that we were on this country for 65,000 years and what is wrong with letting us have a voice in what happens to us?

Evans on Facebook

Evans expresses opinions on a diverse range of topics on his Facebook page and ASIP Benalla group page.

NOEL PEARSON, ABORIGINAL ACTIVIST WITH PERSONAL WEALTH OF OVER $100,000,000 DID NOT SEND ONE CENT TO HELP ABORIGINAL THIS WOMEN. NO, ALL MONEY TO HELP ABORIGINALS MUST COME FROM THE WHITE MANS PURSE, NOT THE ABORIGINALS WHO GET PAID TO HELP THEIR FELLOW ABORIGINALS.
AND WHERE DID ALL THIS MONEY COME FROM ANYWAY?
THIIS IS HOW THE ABORIGINALY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX WORKS. POLITICIANS GIVE MONEY TO CORPORATE AND PROFESSIONAL ABOS, THEY HOARD IT, GIVE NONE WHERE IT IS NEEDED, THEN THEY HOLD OUT THEIR HANDS FOR MORE.

Bruce Evans 11 August at 14:37 – Facebook (personal page)

HELP NEEDED.
I NEED SOMEONE TO RESEARCH WHO IS FUNDING ALL OF THE YES VOTE ORGANISATIONS AND BUILD IT INTO A FLOW CHART THAT CAN BE MADE INTO A POSTER OF A1 SIZE.
Please dont leave all the work to me. I have enough on my plate at the moment getting this ready. Many hands make light work.
PM ME IF YOU CAN DO THIS.

Bruce Evans A Stand In The Park – Benalla, Vic Admin · 17 August at 14:37

No Fibs will seek comment from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) this week.

Questions to AEC

Will the AEC take action against the organisers of A Stand in the Park Benalla’s unlawful ‘vote no’ campaign material?

Does the AEC have a strategy to deal with small but well networked opaque campaign groups flouting the Electoral Act?

Update: AEC responds

Communications and campaign material during the referendum period requires authorisation if considered ‘referendum matter’. Authorisation requirements essentially consist of the one sentence that states who and where the communication has originated from (that is, who approved and who is communicating the material).  

It’s a legislative requirement for any communication that is considered ‘referendum matter’ to be authorised to ensure that voters are aware of who is communicating with them.  

Referendum matter is material communicated, or intended to be communicated, for the dominant purpose of influencing the way electors vote in at a referendum. In addition, campaign material also requires authorisation if the content has been made/distributed by, or on behalf of, a disclosure entity.

From looking at the images you’ve sent through, the material may require authorisation however that it not for myself or media staff to make that assessment. I will send the below on to our authorisation team to have a look at.

It’s important for campaigners to be aware of the authorisation requirements during the referendum. We may see campaigners unaware of these requirements as they may not have distributed material as part of a political debate before. The AEC is here to provide education to campaigners on these matters.  

Important to note that the AEC has long taken a graduated approach to enforcement around authorisations matters for which the first step is to seek a remedy. In the past, authorisations matters have occurred where the AEC has asked for a remedy – these matters have resulted in remedies being applied swiftly and in full. In recognition of public interest in these matters, and the AEC’s graduated approach to enforcement, this has been the end of those matters.

ASIP Benalla responds

A WRITE UP ON OUR VOTE NO ACTIVITIES.
WELL I SUPPOSE IF YOU ARE SHIT AT JOURNALISM AND NO ONE HAS HEARD OF YOUR WEBSITE, YOU HAVE TO SENSATIONALIZE EVERYTHING TO GET ATTENTION.
WE SORT OF EXPECTED THAT FROM SECOND RATE JOURNALISTS.
“A radical far right group called A Stand in the Park Benalla (ASIP Benalla) whose members include anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and WiFi conspiracy theorists are campaigning against a Voice to Parliament using campaign material that does not comply with the Electoral Act – none is “appropriately authorised“.
Just to clarify some of the “journalists” comments:
“radical far right group”
Yes, ONE our group is far right, just me. The rest are a mix of political opinions and my ‘far right’ opinions are not part of our official doctrine or objectives, they are my personal opinions.
“members include anti-vaxxers”
Yes, there is ONE and ONLY ONE anti vaxxer, and that is me. Most others are just pro-choice or varying other views on the topic of vaccines.
“white supremacists”
There are no ‘white supremacists’, but there is one ‘white nationalist’, and that is me and my opinions of this topic are not part of our official doctrine or objectives.
“WiFi conspiracy theorists”
There are NO ‘WiFi conspiracy theorists’, there is one person that has researched this topic for years and is greatly affected by EMF. A real journalist would do there research first before making such a retarded comment.
“using campaign material that does not comply with the Electoral Act”
We used ONE item that was not authorised. A real journalist would have gone to the dozens of websites selling all sorts of paraphernalia that has the aboriginal flag on it with dozens of different designs covering the flag. But this journalist, only wants to push his left wing agenda instead of presenting an unbiased and balanced article.
Does their ‘journalism’ really matter?
No, because no one even goes to their website anyway.
So IDGAF.

[In the post comments]
Gonna use their photos though. We did not have time to get any photos because we were too busy being congratulated for doing this.

Oh, hes a man??? I suspected somewhere between man and women, but not either.
I was not sure when I met him what he was. Thanks for clearing that up LOL

Bruce Evans posted to Facebook

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