The Greens candidate for the seat of Griffith has threatened legal action against Brisbane city council for ordering his supporters to remove election signs from their front yards.
The Brisbane council – Australia’s largest – introduced legislation last May capping election signs to 150 for each federal candidate and requiring residents to register their address with the council before erecting signs on their properties.
The legislation, which reversed a 2015 easing of restrictions, also stated signs on private property could not be installed more than 28 days prior to the election and must be removed within seven days of the election.
At the time, Brisbane’s lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, said the changes would “help reduce the wastefulness and the significant free-for-all and visual pollution across the city”.
But the move was criticised by the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties for infringing on people’s political freedoms.
Michael Cope, the president of the QCCL, said laws requiring “people to register with the council before they can … express a political opinion on their own private property is fundamentally repugnant to the whole concept of freedom of speech”.
Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens candidate for Griffith, argues the law defines the election date as the opening of pre-polling, meaning signs could be erected from 11 April.
However, authorities say the pre-polling reference does not apply to private property, and only to election signage on continuous signage devices, mobile vehicle election signs and election signs at pre-polling places.
The threats of legal action meant people had been ordered to remove signs this week, which they would be able to return to their yards on Saturday.
Holland Park resident Claire Mitchell said she was “disappointed” to receive a letter on Wednesday, days after erecting a sign on her property promoting Chandler-Mather.
“I was home yesterday and I noticed [council workers] walked over to my sign and took a photo of it … then they left a notice in my letterbox,” she said. “It said I need to urgently contact them in regard to removing the election sign.”
Mitchell said she had seen election yard signs for different candidates up all around her area. And despite a warning from council, she was determined to keep her sign up, even if it meant incurring a penalty.
“When I realised what was going on, I was really angry about it. I feel like it’s bullying and undemocratic,” she said.
Another Brisbane Labor MP confirmed their office had also received requests to ask supporters to take down their signs.
Chandler-Mather said the Greens were prepared to take council to court over the “draconian” directive.
“I want to be very clear, we won’t be taking a single yard sign down,” Chandler-Mather said.
“If they start issuing fines, that’s absolutely something we’ve already sought legal advice on and we’d pursue it as far as we possibly can.
“And if that means going to court, then so be it.”
Griffith, the former seat of then prime minister Kevin Rudd, is one of the Greens’ biggest targets at the May election.
Chandler-Mather said laws restricting the number of yard signs unfairly targeted the Greens as a minor party which relied on significant organic community support to campaign.
“If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy lots of billboards like Clive Palmer then you can get as many of those as you like,” he said.
“But apparently now they want to say that only 150 people in an electorate of over 120,000 are allowed to host something on their own property.
“It’s undemocratic and I would argue unconstitutional, and an extraordinary waste of ratepayers’ resources.
“There are paid council staffers right now whose entire job is to drive around the electorate, find yard signs and tell them to take it down.”
In a written response to Guardian questions, the chair of Brisbane council’s standards, community health and safety committee, Kim Marx, said “Brisbane city council’s advertising law applies to every candidate equally and the requirements will be enforced during the federal election.”
“The law strikes an appropriate balance between allowing freedom of expression while preventing a political signage free-for-all that residents strongly oppose,” Marx said.
