BCC Election sign Law violates Right to Free Speech

QCCL President Michael Cope said today, “The QCCL is opposed to the recent decision of the Brisbane City Council to reinstate restrictions on the placing of election signs on private property in Brisbane”.

Under the new rules, which are said to reinstate the old rules the following restrictions , amongst others, will be placed on people placing signs on their private property supporting candidates at State, Federal and Local elections:

1. The person must register with the Council before erecting the sign
2. it cannot be installed more than 28 days prior to the election and must be removed within seven days of the election
3. a candidate cannot display more than 150 signs in Commonwealth seat and 50 in a State seat or Council seat

“A law requiring people to register with the Council before they can exercise their right to express a political opinion on their own private property is fundamentally repugnant to the whole concept of freedom of speech” says Michael Cope President of the QCCL.

“QCCL accepts that the Council has legitimate interests to protect in regulating signs including political signs, which include preventing them from obstructing views and boundaries, restricting land use, distracting motorists and preventing eyesores. To that end, the Council can no doubt pass local laws which restrict the size of signs, number of signs and the places where signs can be put to achieve these objectives.”

However, it is our view that it is entirely inappropriate for the Council to require a person to register with them before putting up a political sign.

Furthermore, in our view the durational limits are also unacceptable. There should be no restriction on the time period before an election during which people can express their preference.

Given that the election is over, the requirement to take the signs down after the election makes more sense. However why should people’s right to express their political views with a reasonable sign on their own land be restricted in this way? We would expect that most people will readily take down an old and redundant sign without compulsion.

Finally, whilst the Council could reasonably put a broader limit on the number of signs a person could put on their property so as to prevent visual pollution, the restrictions on the number of signs that can be erected in a seat are in our view entirely inappropriate. They are not sufficiently related to the question of land use, safety, or visual pollution.

“We are sure, that the interest which people have in maintaining the value of their property is a very strong incentive not to clutter their land with a large number of large signs all year round” said Mr Cope.

The QCCL has no doubt that these regulations would be struck down in the United States under its FIrst Amendment. However, in Australia, we only have the very amorphous implied constitutional right of free political communication. We don’t think it is possible to say whether or not these laws would be struck down on the basis of that principle.

“The fact the Council is re-enacting old laws is irrelevant. The laws were an unacceptable restriction of freedom of speech back then and the remain so now”