Beloved Aussie activist Danny Lim has been threatened with a possible six months in jail or a $6000 fine over an obscure election rule – as he runs for office in the state election.
The 79-year-old, who is well-known on Sydney streets for wearing his iconic sandwich board promoting love and happiness, is contesting an upper house seat.
It is five months since Mr Lim was violently accosted by police in the Queen Victoria Building, and ended up in hospital with a subdural haematoma (blood clot) on the brain.
The incident sparked outrage and supporters held a protest against the harsh treatment of Mr Lim outside police headquarters in Surry Hills.
An internal police investigation was announced into the arrest attempt.
Mr Lim was not charged with any offence and is now running for his fourth attempt at a seat in the NSW Upper House, on a campaign of social justice and ‘a fair go’.
However this week Mr Lim was told that he could go to jail for be fined thousands of dollars for an apparent anomaly in his so-called election material, with the popular figure saying he feels he has been the victim of a clandestine attempt to ‘dob’ him in.
Danny Lim was standing at his favourite spot when photographed on Monday, with the image sent to the AEC who now say he could be fined or go to prison for contravening the Australian Electoral Act
Despite his violent arrest by two police last November, Danny Lim says he supports police and appreciates (above pictured with a police officer at Belmore Park on Australia Day this year)
On Monday, Mr Lim was standing in a Newtown street, holding an old campaign poster saying ‘had enuf, Vote 1 Danny Lim’.
He was wearing a sandwich board as usual, this one with fresh campaign slogans saying ‘Stop this brutality now’ with a cartoon by Sydney artist Shakespeare of Danny Lim’s attempted police arrest last November.
Mr Lim said he posed, as usual, smiling for a man who snapped him in the street, but the photo ended up with the Australian Electoral Commission who called him two days later saying he was infringing the Electoral Act.
‘This man called and I thought someone is playing a joke and he called himself a senior investigator and said I need to use words in my poster on an A-frame.
Last November, Danny Lim hit the tiles at the QVB after police tried to arrest him as he made his way to a phone shop, wearing his distinctive sandwich board
The official told Mr Lim he could hand write the words and his address on the material, but that the ‘maximum penalty for an individual who fails to comply is 20 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both’.
‘I don’t have an A-frame? he said he’d send me the handbook for candidates.’
What the AEC official was telling Mr Lim was that under section 186 of the Electoral Act, between 6 March 2023 and 6.00pm on election day, Saturday 25 March 2023, all electoral material needs to clearly show the words ‘Authorised by Danny Lim’ and his address.
It is the same wording seen on election posters by major parties, or at the end of television campaign commercials.
The person who photographed Mr Lim at Newtown and sent in the image of him to the AEC had reported him for allegedly contravening the act.
He was told that a social media page like Facebook and Twitter must also have ‘the name and address of the individual on whose instructions the material was published or distributed must be published or distributed in a way, if any, prescribed by the regulations’.
Mr Lim told Daily Mail Australia that in every previous election he had no such written authority on any election posters and that his sandwich board was ‘not an A-frame’ and was just part of his clothing.
Danny Lim, now aged 79, was admitted to hospital with a subdural haematoma, or blood clot on the brain, and has since suffered from PTSD related to the incident
The incident sparked outrage and supporters held a protest (above) against the harsh treatment of Mr Lim outside police headquarters in Surry Hills
He had paid $500 to register his nomination as a candidate and, once a sandwich board with his new slogans and ‘Vote 1 Danny Lim’ were made up, he went to his ‘favourite corner’ in Newtown on Monday morning wearing it.
‘It’s what I wear,’ he said, ‘it’s not electoral material, it’s my uniform. “Authorised by Danny Lim?” Why should I write a thing? I don’t accept any donations from anyone.
‘I don’t have election posters and leaflet or print any vote to vote cards because I don’t have the money to do it.
‘The photo was taken in front of Newtown station and Enmore Road, that’s my favourite place, I’ve been standing there for years.
‘This is very cloak and dagger. I’ve never had any problem before and if they fine me, I’ll go to jail because I can’t pay the fine.
‘At least in jail I will be looked after.’
Mr Lim, who is still suffering from PTSD from his violent arrest, wept while talking about what he hoped he could give the community if elected, and about his childhood.
Born on the same day in 1944 as former prime minister Paul Keating, Mr Lim’s father ‘died one day before I was born, my mother die four months later’.
Online election campaign for activist Danny Lim with one of his trademark sayings, ‘peace, love and respect, mother’
‘My grandmother brought me up. She taught me about life, always turn the other cheek.
‘I love Australia, Australia give me a chance and I care about the future. I am campaigning for lots of things, but more about social justice.’
Mr Lim said even after his handling by the police, he didn’t blame the officers or police and wore supportive posters, as he did for the two Queensland officers murdered in the Wieambilla Doomsday ambush last December.
Mr Lim, who has met just about every NSW Premier over the last few decades – ‘Gladys (Berejiklian) , I knew Barry O’Farrell very well, even Johnny Howard, always come and talk to me’ – does not belong to any political party and is campaigning with his own team of independent candidates.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if I go very very close to winning, I get the greatest support from people in the Eastern Suburbs and Newtown, everyone is awakening.
‘If I am emotional,’ he said, breaking down in tears, ‘it’s because I have a bit of post stress, but I always forgive, I never learned to hate.
”I made a sign (for the two officers who arrested him) “every police is individual, my deepest condolence to lady and man”. It’s a very simple sign.’
If Mr Lim is elected and avoids going to jail for Electoral Act matters, he can promise something perhaps no other candidate can.
‘I’ve got nothing to hide, I never do anything for any financial gain. Too much money is a burden,’ he said.
‘I am an open book.’
If you need to chat about this please don’t hesitate to contact Peter Baragry on 9290 5429.
Kind regards,
Peter Baragry | Senior Investigator
NSW Electoral Commission
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk