The supreme court has overseen a peace deal between the Victorian Labor party and a Melbourne council over the removal of election campaign billboards but a war of words continues as to whether the actions were politically motivated.
Darebin council sits within the seat of Northcote, where the contest between the Labor MP, Kat Theophanous, and the Greens candidate, Campbell Gome, is expected to go down to the wire on Saturday.
On Tuesday the Victorian Labor party accused Darebin council of removing eight large billboards belonging to Theophanous from private properties without the campaign’s knowledge. Each billboard costs up to $1,163 to create and up to $500 to install.
Labor accused the council, which consists of three Labor, three Greens and three independent councillors, of interfering with the state election by removing the signs.
In the supreme court on Wednesday Darebin promised not to remove signs in four further locations while the Theophanous campaign said it would remove any offensive material within 24 hours if the billboards were defaced.
In a statement afterwards, the council disputed Labor’s claim that the action was politically motivated.
“In October, a small number of signs were removed by Council that had been the subject of community complaint because of offensive graffiti or were inconsistent with Council’s policy on the display of electoral signage,” a spokesperson said.
“This is an operational matter and as such, Councillors have no input into how and when the Local law is enforced by Council officers.”
But the Labor campaign was not mollified. “This is blatant political interference from the Greens-dominated City of Darebin Council, who are acting just like the Liberal-controlled Bayside Council in Goldstein during this year’s Federal Election,” a spokesperson said.
“People have the right to campaign and seek community support without craven political interference from local councils.”
The Darebin spokesperson said council “respected the importance of the electoral process”.
The Andrews government is increasingly worried about losing Northcote as well as neighbouring Richmond after the Liberals decided to preference the Greens ahead of Labor.
The Greens briefly held Northcote when Lidia Thorpe, now a federal senator, won it at a byelection in 2017 before losing to Theophanous in 2018. It is held on just a 1.7% margin.
