Electoral Act 1985

A person must not publish or distribute, or cause or permit to be published or distributed, an electoral advertisement in printed form or through electronic publication on the Internet unless—

the name (being the name by which the person is usually known) and address (not being a post office box) of the author of the advertisement, or the person who authorised its publication, appears at the end; and

if the advertisement is authorised for a registered political party or a candidate endorsed by a registered political party—the party's name or, if the Register of Political Parties includes an abbreviation of the party's name, that abbreviation appears at the end; and

if the advertisement is authorised for a relevant third party—the relevant third party's name appears at the end.

Maximum penalty:

if the offender is a natural person—$5 000;

if the offender is a body corporate—$10 000.

Despite subsection (1)(a), an advertisement authorised by a candidate who is not endorsed by a registered political party may, with the approval of the Electoral

Commissioner, include a post office box address for the candidate (instead of a street address) at the end if the suburb in which the candidate resides is also included at the end of the advertisement.

Subsection (1) does not apply in relation to—

a car sticker, T-shirt, lapel button, lapel badge, pen, pencil or balloon; or

an article included in a prescribed class of articles.

In this section—

relevant third party means an organisation or other person, other than a registered political party, candidate or natural person, who—

as at the day of publication of the advertisement to which subsection (1)(ac) relates, intends to spend more than $2 000 on electoral advertisements—

if the advertisement is published in an election period—during that election period; or

in any other case—during the election period for the next general election due to occur; or

spent more than $2 000 on electoral advertisements during the election period for the general election immediately preceding the day of publication of the advertisement to which subsection (1)(ac) relates.