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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
Jasper Lindell

'A poor judgement call': Green apologises for stealing Liberal flyer

A Greens candidate has apologised after being caught on camera taking a Liberal flyer and replacing it with her own Greens material while out door knocking.

Harini Rangarajan said: "This is a poor judgement call on my behalf, I shouldn't have done it. I apologise to the resident and the Canberra Liberal Party."

A video of Ms Rangarajan taking a Liberal flyer from a door step was posted to the Canberra Noticeboard Group, a public Facebook group, on Saturday afternoon.

The poster said a Liberal representative left a leaflet at the door about 12.40pm on Friday afternoon.

"Around 5.15pm I was working in my backyard and [a] Green candidate came and removed that leaflet and put into her bag. Why??" the poster wrote.

"You lost my consideration, sorry."

Ms Rangarajan, 20, has said the lack of representation of young and diverse voices, from diverse cultural backgrounds, in the ACT's lawmakers drove her to be involved in politics and to run for Murrumbidgee.

"I strongly believe that the climate crisis is the most pressing threat to our planet and our people at this moment. It is one that is fuelled by exploitation of the working class at the hands of the greedy elite," she said in a statement provided to Elections ACT.

Picture supplied

Jason Taylor, who is running in Yerrabi for the Belco Party, condemned the "dark arts tactics" of the Greens.

"I can assure you as a minor party candidate, who has to slog their guts out to do door knocking, letterboxing, putting corflutes up and the shops, this sort of under handed, dark arts tactics from the Greens is really unfair - even undemocratic," Mr Taylor said.

Interference with other parties' election campaign material has long been a feature of territory politics.

Corflutes across the city have been damaged, defaced and removed during the election campaign.

Canberra Liberals president Nick Tyrrell last month warned any party member found to have destroyed, defaced or tampered with another Liberal candidate's election material maliciously would be expelled from the party.

"I am sure it will not come to that, as we recognise that we are all on the same team, but in light of issues in previous elections the decision was made pro-actively," Mr Tyrrell wrote in an email to members.

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