Four aspiring political parties seeking to contest the Victorian state election – including a new website called “Refugees Are Welcome Here” – could be a part of a “connected campaign” to funnel preferences to One Nation and other conservative parties.
The website for “Refugees Are Welcome Here”, created on 5 May, said it’s seeking 750 Victorian members to sign up so it can register as a political party in the state.
The domain is being hosted on the same IP address as the so-called “Muslim Votes Matter” party, the “Free Palestine party” and the “Save the Environment party” – three other entities seeking registration ahead of the November’s election. Their websites similarly ask for 750 members to sign up, although the Victorian Electoral Commission requires only 500.
Rightwing provocateur Avi Yemini has claimed credit for the “Free Palestine party” and anti-lockdown activist Monica Smit for the “Save the Environment party”.
Yemini was also the first to publicly mention “Muslim Votes Matter” – which has used the identical name as an exisiting political advocacy group in a move condemned by the grassroots organisation as an attempt to “mislead” voters. In a YouTube video last week, Yemeni said the “person behind this party” had been inspired by him.
But analysis of domain records by Guardian Australia suggests the groups are linked. The website for “Muslim Votes Matter” was created two days before “Refugees Are Welcome Here”.
The aspiring parties also share the same IP address as 10 domains linked to Smit, including two Reignite Democracy websites, a site promoting her biography, another her production business and others connected to her campaigns, including three that promote cash use.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailWith the exception of the Reignite Democracy websites, their registrant details have been anonymised.
“They’ve obviously taken steps to ensure that the details of the people behind these political parties are not publicly available,” said Mark Gregory, an RMIT associate professor in the school of engineering.
Gregory said it would be “highly unusual” for political parties to “serendipitously all register at the same time and all get their websites at the same time through the one provider”. He believed the sites were created either by a single individual or a contractor.
Hammond Pearce, a senior lecturer in cybersecurity at UNSW, said while anonymising domain registration had become more common, the use of a shared IP address and the websites’ similar infrastructure, design and wording was akin to “finding a whole load of political flyers from different campaigns in the same person’s desk drawer”.
“That’s what’s happening here – they’re all using the same infrastructure, they’ve all got very similar themes and many of the websites do have cross-linking,” Pearce said. “There is very strong evidence that there’s a connected campaign going.”
Rahat Masood, a senior lecturer at UNSW’s school of computer science and engineering, agreed.
“Shared hosting can occur innocently. But when multiple newly registered political entities appear on the same infrastructure, within a very short timeframe, it raises legitimate questions about whether these groups are more operationally connected than they publicly appear,” Masood said.
Smit would not confirm whether she had created the “Refugees Are Welcome Here” website or where it would direct its preferences, saying: “that party has not yet been launched, so I have no comment on that”.
Asked whether she was behind all four aspiring parties, she said: “No. The registered officers are responsible for their own parties.”
Smit said each entity’s registered officer would be responsible for its preference arrangements, should they succeed in registering as political parties, but that “Save the Environment” would “likely preference One Nation in most regions”. She said she would also take into consideration individual candidates across the state.
‘Harvesting’ votes
Yemeni has said in social media videos that the entities each tapped into “different voting blocs” on the left but would ultimately direct their preferences “to One Nation and other conservatives”.
“We’ve got Save the Environment harvesting the climate vote. We’ve got Free Palestine targeting the hate vote and now Muslim Votes Matter to capture this growing migrant group that’s been cynically mobilised to vote against us,” he said in last week’s video.
This is possible due to Victoria’s upper house being the only Australian house of parliament still using the group voting ticket (GVT) system. Under GVTs, voters are only able to choose one party above the line on the ballot paper, with their preferences then allocated by the party if it’s knocked out during counting.
Political analyst Kevin Bonham said GVTs were “not an adequately democratic system” as they allow backroom preference deals between parties and so-called preference whisperers to flourish, resulting in the election of candidates with “no real voter support”.
Bonham said the latest four aspiring political parties were among the more “blatant examples” he’s seen.
“It’s not clear whether they’re doing it seriously, with intent to actually run, or whether they’re just trying to engage in a stunt and make a point against group voting tickets,” he said.
Smit said the four parties were “helping to highlight the obvious flaws” of GVTs.
“All of the registered officers involved share the view that Victoria’s GVT system should be abolished. Preferences should be determined by voters themselves, not by backroom deals between parties,” she said.
One response has been to register another political party to prevent Yemeni’s “Free Palestine party” from claiming the name. As of Friday morning, the “Free Palestine Party Australia” has secured 436 registrations and is hoping to register before Yemeni’s group.
“If we can get over 500 registrations before Yemeni, then he will be unable to use the name ‘Free Palestine party’ or any similar name for any party he wishes to register,” a call for final members read.
The Coalition, the Greens, One Nation and two parliamentary inquiries – chaired by Labor MPs – have all called for GVTs to be scrapped. The Allan government is yet to respond to the latest inquiry but the Victorian Electoral Commission has said Labor has until August to legislate changes in time for the election.
Liberal MP Chris Crewther – the deputy chair of an inquiry that called on the government to do so “as soon as possible” – said Yemini’s antics demonstrate “how crazy the current system is and how easily it can be manipulated”.
“Our laws indeed permit anyone to market one thing to voters and deliver another thing through the preference machinery,” Crewther told parliament on Tuesday.
“Either such parties must be accepted … or ideally, the system should be abolished.”
