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The campaign director for independent candidate Zoe Daniel, who is running hard to take the federal seat of Goldstein from Liberal MP Tim Wilson, has launched a Supreme Court case against a Melbourne council over its attempt to ban political signs in front yards.

Supporters of the high-profile former ABC journalist had put up signs in front yards around suburbs in Bayside Council’s areas, which include Black Rock, Brighton, Hampton and Sandringham.

Tim Wilson and challenger Zoe Daniel. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen, Simon Schluter

But on Friday last week, Bayside backflipped on a ruling it had given Ms Daniel’s team in December that allowed signs to be put up in front yards across the municipality.

Having ruled in December that front yard signs campaigning for election candidates were exempt from planning laws, the council now says they are banned until the federal poll is called. The council’s senior investigations officer on Tuesday threatened residents with fines if they did not remove any signs in their front yard by Thursday.

A federal election is expected in May. The Liberal Party holds the seat of Goldstein by a margin of 7.8 per cent.

While Mr Wilson said he was “quite happy to wait until the official election campaign” before he began to ask supporters to put up signs in their front yard, Ms Daniel said they must be allowed immediately.

“Freedom of political expression is sacrosanct,” Ms Daniel said on Thursday. Her campaign director Keith Badger, an accountant from Brighton, lodged the Supreme Court challenge to the council ruling on Wednesday.

Ms Daniel, a 48-year-old who lives in Hampton, is running on a “climate and integrity” platform, supported by local non-aligned community group Voices of Goldstein.

Fundraising group Climate 200, which is supporting Ms Daniel’s campaign, said last week the battle over signage had triggered $53,366 in fresh donations. Half of this will go to Ms Daniel, and her spokeswoman said that money would be used to print more signs.

Mr Wilson said Bayside Council “has advised us that if our supporters erect signs they will be in breach of the law and will get fined, so we have complied with the law”.

“We just want a consistent rule, not one that rewards opponents for breaking the law,” he said. “If any candidate’s campaign wants to spend donor’s money on court cases then that’s up to them.”

Ms Daniel’s spokeswoman said legal work on the case was being done pro bono by lawyers supporting her campaign.

Martyn Abbott, the Labor candidate in Goldstein said on Thursday that he was appalled to see political posters barred. He said Mr Wilson should be fighting against the Bayside Council ruling too.

He said it was ironic Mr Wilson, a former policy director at the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs, should not be fighting for political expression and the freedom to advertise.

“I suppose he only supports it when it suits him,” said Mr Abbott, who is having “Labor for Goldstein” signs printed and hopes to have them in his supporters’ front yards by next week.

Zoe Daniel’s campaign manager Keith Badger with the sign on his front fence.

The council’s insistence that signs cannot be put up legally relies on local planning laws that say a planning permit is not required to put up a political sign less than five square metres in size. However the laws also state the sign “must not be displayed longer than 14 days after the event is held or three months, whichever is sooner”.

The council last week issued a notice saying it had Australian Electoral Commission advice banning front yard signs being erected until a federal election is called for the lower house. But an email sent on December 10 last year by Bayside’s director of city planning said election signage “is exempt from needing a planning permit”.

Despite widespread expectations that a federal election will be called by May, Bayside Council said in a statement that signs could not be put up in front yards until June 3 unless an election was called. “The latest possible date for a House of Representatives election [is] September 3, 2022,” the council said in its statement, citing the local planning laws. May 21 is the last possible date for a combined lower house and Senate election.

Bayside Council declined to comment further on Thursday when asked what the fines would be to residents who kept their signs up, and why it had decided to issue the warnings after saying in December that signs were exempt from planning laws. “We won’t be making any further comments at this time,” a council communications officer said.

Ms Daniel’s lawyers will argue in court that the council’s interpretation of state regulations was contrary to the implied freedom of political communication in Australia, and was contrary to previous advice it provided. They will also argue it was contrary to the practice of other councils in Melbourne that have identical planning schemes.

Neighbouring council Glen Eira has not taken any action against residents in its suburbs who have put up signs supporting Ms Daniel, or any other candidates.

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