Election shenanigans are far from over here in Australia. The Australian federal election is still throwing up cliffhangers and shockers, and a by-election is almost certain in the state of Victoria. Never a dull day.
In a bizarre twist, news has emerged that an election worker somehow stole about nearly 2000 ballots in the Sydney seat of Barton. The incident did not affect the vote count, as the ballots had already been counted. The two boxes of ballots were still sealed. In an even more curious twist, the Australian Electoral Commission chose not to announce the theft: the story was broken by the ABC instead.
In further election news, another Sydney seat hangs on a knife edge.
The northern Sydney seat of Bradfield will face a recount because the slim vote difference between Liberal Gisele Kapterian and independent Nicolette Boele will come down to fewer than 100 ballots, Sky News has projected.
The Australian Electoral Commission in the case of tight margins conducts a recount, as it did in Herbert in 2016 when the initial two-candidate-preferred margin was under 100 votes.
Bradfield was called in favour of Ms Kapterian earlier in the week but was put back into the uncertain column as late votes skewed in favour of Ms Boele.
Further south, in Victoria, the prospect of a by-election looms, as former Liberal leader John Pesutto faces the consequences of his big, stupid, mouth.
Former Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto has been ordered to pay more than $2.3m of his fellow Liberal MP Moira Deeming’s costs following her high-stakes defamation battle win against him.
On Friday, Senior Judicial Registrar Alison Legge in the Federal Court assessed Mr Pesutto as liable to pay $2,308,873.11, including GST, to Ms Deeming in costs.
If Pesutto is unable to pay and is forced into bankruptcy, he will be ineligible to remain in parliament and a by-election will be triggered in the MP’s seat of Hawthorn.
Ms Deeming sued Mr Pesutto over allegations that he falsely portrayed her as a Nazi sympathiser after she helped organise and attended a Let Women Speak rally that was gate-crashed by neo-Nazis.
In December last year, Federal Court Judge David O’Callaghan found Mr Pesutto had defamed Ms Deeming and awarded her $300,000 in damages.
The result ultimately cost Mr Pesutto his job as leader, while Ms Deeming, who had been expelled from the Liberal party room over the matter, was welcomed back into the fold.
The Victorian Liberals are bending over backwards to try and save the career of their late, unlamented leader. Pesutto is allegedly begging party colleagues for career-saving loans and prominent Liberals are trying to pass the hat.
Yet Pesutto is entirely a victim of his own woke stupidity.
Late last year a judge found Mr Pesutto defamed Ms Deeming on multiple occasions, including in radio and TV interviews.
The court found Mr Pesutto had conveyed an imputation that Ms Deeming “associates with Nazis and is thus unfit to be a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party”.
The only reason the Libs are so desperate to save Pesutto’s arse is that Hawthorn is prime Teal territory. The state seat sits within the federal seat of Kooyong, which was narrowly held by Teal Monique ‘Mongo’ Ryan at the May election. Analysis of voting booths results suggests a tough fight for the Liberals to hold the seat.
On the other hand, state politics are not federal politics. The Allan Labor government is hated with a passion. A Liberal win would be seen as a devastating harbinger of things to come in next year’s state election.
