Former MP Andrew Laming’s fine for Facebook posts that did not disclose his political links, including by writing in the third person, has been doubled.
In 2023 the federal Liberal MP was fined $20,000 for three contraventions of the Electoral Act. The federal court found his posts on the “Redland Hospital: Let’s fight for fair funding” Facebook page in the months before the 2019 federal election did not carry his name and town or city, as required for proper authorisation.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) appealed the initial decision, arguing there were 28 contraventions. Laming launched a counter appeal, which was dismissed.
On Friday, the court agreed with the AEC, because 28 people saw the three posts, and handed down a $40,000 fine. It found:
Six people saw a post on 24 December 2018 which referred to Mr Laming in the third person and asserted as a “fact check” that he had boosted funding of the Redland hospital by $77m. The fine for that was $20,000.
Eight people saw a post on 7 Feb 2019 favourably comparing health funding from the LNP compared with Labor. The fine for that was $10,000.
14 people saw a post on 5 May 2019 which compared health funding from the federal LNP government to the Queensland government with the caption “Know anyone supporting Labor. Send them this.” The fine for that was $10,000.
The court found that because Laming was a sitting member at the time, he had an obligation to disclose his name and town or city as the person authorising the posts. Any information that is “communicated, or intended to be communicated, for the dominant purpose of influencing the way electors vote in a federal election” must be properly authorised, according to the AEC.
Laming chose not to give evidence on Friday.
Laming did not contest his former seat of Bowman at the 2022 election. He lost preselection for the seat after a series of controversies.
In a statement, the AEC said it was “pleasing to see the court uphold our appeal and increase the penalty”.
“Authorisations laws are there so that people know the source of election communication. With the increasing complexity of the information environment, this has never been more important,” it said.
“The result serves as a message to people who fail to authorise their communication that there are potential ramifications.
“It is particularly noteworthy that the court agreed that each time an unauthorised post is viewed on social media is the number of potential breaches recorded.”
When the AEC first began legal action, Laming apologised and said the five posts originally investigated were only 2% of the posts on the page, which had an average reach of six people. He said his office was confident at the time that they were “complying by avoiding federal electoral matter” and apologised for the lack of authorisation.
Guardian Australia has contacted Laming for comment.
