The logo used by David Leyonhjelm’s Liberal Democratic party at the 2016 election failed to meet the Australian Electoral Commission’s guidelines and should not have been approved, a review of the decision has found.
The logo, used during the 2016 election campaign, shows the word “Liberal” in large, bolded capital letters, with the word “Democrat” in smaller, unbolded letters.
Complaints were made about the logo to the commission in May 2016, but the Australian Electoral Commission found there was insufficient evidence to determine the logo should be refused.
But in June two eminent tobacco control experts and professors of public health, Mike Daube from Curtin University and Simon Chapman from the University of Sydney, called on the commission to review its decision. The professors are interested in Leyonhjelm in part because of his acceptance of $55,000 in donations from big tobacco company Philip Morris.
In their complaint Daube and Chapman asserted that the new logo was deliberately designed to mislead voters and to suggest a relationship or connection to the Liberal party.
But the commission said their decision that the logo was acceptable stood, in part because “the reasons why a party chooses a certain logo design, or why a party chooses to change that design, are not relevant for the purposes of assessing a proposed logo under part XI of the Electoral Act”.
However, on Thursday the commission sent a document to Daube and Chapman, which has been seen by Guardian Australia, which said a further review of the decision had led them to refuse to enter the Liberal Democratic party logo into the register.
“In the opinion of the Electoral Commission the font and prominence of the word ‘Liberal’ so nearly resembles the Liberal party of Australia’s logo as it appears on the ballot paper, such that a reasonable person is likely to confuse or mistake the Liberal Democratic party logo for the logo of the Liberal party of Australia”.
In its statement of reasons the commission said it had “decided to set aside the decision under review”.
A media officer with the commission told Guardian Australia it meant that the previous decision to include the logo in the register had been revoked and that the logo would be removed from the register. However it is unclear what the implications of this are given the election was held in August and the logo has already been used.
“If this logo has worked to cause a significant number of people to vote for him this is of immense interest and it certainly should be of interest to the Australian parliament,” Chapman said.
“However, it is a shame that it took the commission about eight months to come up with this finding.”
Daube said “it raises all kinds of questions about what this means for the election result if he was elected partly on the basis of a dodgy logo”.
The decision follows controversy over the name of the party in the 2013 election, when the Liberal Democrats drew first place on the NSW ballot paper. In what has been labelled a fluke, the size of the ballot paper columns saw the name “Liberal Democrats” split across two lines, and election analysts said voters may have placed a “1’”next to the Liberal Democrats believing they were voting Liberal. The party won 50 times the vote it received in 2007, before its previous name of the Liberty and Democracy party was scrapped.
A spokesman for Leyonhjelm said the Senator was aware of the finding, but was not immediately available for comment.
