Pubdate: Tue, 27 Mar 2001
Source: Illawarra Mercury (Australia)
Copyright: 2001 Illawarra Newspapers
Contact:  282 Keira St, Wollongong NSW 2500
Fax: (02) 4226 3616
Website: http://www.illawarramercury.com/

LIBERALS CRY FOUL IN RYAN DEFEAT

The Liberal Party yesterday lodged a formal complaint with the Australian
Electoral Commission over an alleged preference deal between Labor and an
independent candidate in the Ryan by-election.

Although Liberal candidate Bob Tucker has conceded the federal seat to
Labor's Leonie Short, his party has alleged state backbencher Julie Attwood
may have breached electoral laws by allowing independent Nigel Freemarijuana
to print material in her office in exchange for preferences.

Liberal state director Graham Jaeschke said there had been a strong flow of
Mr Freemarijuana's preferences to Labor and this could put the result of the
by-election in doubt because Mr Freemarijuana had attracted 1700 votes.

``Because of the close margin this needs to be investigated fully,'' Mr
Jaeschke said.

``There have been no satisfactory answers either from Julie Attwood or from
the Labor Party.''

AEC Queensland officer Bob Longland said he had already begun a preliminary
investigation and had three options for dealing with the matter.

The first was that no laws had been breached and the matter should be
dismissed while the second was that there was evidence of bribery which
should be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions for further
action.

The third option was to ask the Australian Federal Police to conduct an
investigation.

The chairman of the federal electoral rorts inquiry, Christopher Pyne,
joined the call for an investigation.

Mr Pyne, chairman of the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters, said the
claims had opened a can of worms for the Labor Party.

``The question here is that the Labor Party has been accused of paying for
Nigel Freemarijuana's how-to-vote cards and Nigel Freemarijuana says that
was in exchange for preferences,'' Mr Pyne said.

``If that is the case then this could well be an inducement under the
Electoral Act and if so it could be a breach of the Electoral Act.''
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