Kerryn Phelps lodges AEC complaint over fake email claiming she has HIV
Image: Dr Kerryn Phelps. Image: Australian Marriage Equality.
Independent candidate for Wentworth Kerryn Phelps says she has reported the fake email circulated claiming she had quit the campaign because she has HIV to Australia’s election regulators.
Phelps says she has received legal advice and has lodged a complaint with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the ABC reported.
The AEC has said they are “making inquiries” into the email, which was sent to hundreds of voters in the electorate.
The email was sent from a fake address, and also urged recipients to divert their vote to Liberal Party candidate Dave Sharma.
While it was first reported that Sharma’s campaign did not wish to comment on the email, he has since condemned it, and today called for it to be investigated by the Australian Federal Police.
“It’s clear it didn’t come from us and didn’t come from our campaign. We had nothing to do with it,” he said.
Phelps said the email was “shocking and disturbing” and labelled it “homophobic”.
I have discussed the email with @DaveSharma and @Timpmurray today and we have all unanimously condemned it for its intent and content. I have briefed a lawyer who has lodged a complaint with the AEC and who is also intending to report it to appropriate authorities#WentworthVotes
— Prof Kerryn Phelps AM (@drkerrynphelps) October 18, 2018
“Just when you think we’ve come so far in destigmatising HIV, something like this comes along and shows how much more work we still have to do,” she told ABC News Breakfast this morning.
Co-founder of The Institute of Many Nic Holas slammed the email on Twitter, calling it “an indication that HIV stigma is alive and well” and “absolutely deplorable.”
“Even if [Phelps] was living with HIV, which she’s not, she’d still make a worthy candidate.
“People Living with HIV deserve better than this. The only thing killing us is ignorance.”
Earlier this week, anti-LGBTI flyers were attacking Safe Schools were found in Wentworth, despite the program no longer running in New South Wales.
The flyers were also riddled with transphobic language and alleging that Safe Schools is designed to indoctrinate kids into transitioning.
Phelps, who was a prominent marriage equality campaigner, has been tipped to take the seat from the Liberal Party for the first time in the electorate’s history at the by-election on Saturday.
Under the law, communications likely to affect voting require authorisation from candidates, MPs, registered political parties and associated groups.
Breaching this part of the Electoral Act could attract fines of up to $25,200.
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@ Dave..
No matter what you call it (Stupid), it is demeaning, homophobic and evil. Prof Phelps is a caring and delightful Dr who I hope wins the Wentworth by election. I sincerely hope the AEC and AFP catch the perpetrators and throw the book at them.
Plebiscite 2.0 all over again!
Obviously dumb and upsetting, and in a high-profile campaign bullshit like this does need to be reported to the AEC etc, but I wonder if this was some cretin’s attempt at a “Chaser-style prank”, as a Liberal candidate famously described her own campaign’s use of fliers purportedly published by a Muslim group advocating a vote for Labor during the 2007 election.
Everybody is at some sort of risk of HIV infection but statistically lesbians don’t get HIV. The email’s claim is so ludicrously unlikely that it seem like a bad attempt at a joke rather than intended to actually change any votes. It’s not funny, it’s unnecessarily offensive and it’s counter productive but I’m putting it in the “stupid” rather than “evil” category until we find out more about who sent the email.