‘MEDISCARE’-style political campaigns could soon be illegal under new measures being pushed by the Turnbull Government.

Harsh penalties including jail time are being considered for offenders.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is looking to make impersonating a Commonwealth entity a crime after the text messages purporting to be from Medicare were sent during the 2016 election campaign, Sky News reports.

The resulting ‘Mediscare’ campaign dominated headlines in the weeks leading up to the election.

Labor had used text messages, alongside fake member cards, to claim the public health system would be privatised by a Liberal government.

An Australian Federal Police investigation later found the campaign was legal.

But now a parliamentary committee is calling for new offences for impersonating a Commonwealth officer or entity.

The new laws would also make it illegal for Commonwealth logos and symbols to be used to mislead the public during election campaigns.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/turnbull-targets-mediscarestyle-political-tactics-considering-tough-penalties-including-jail-time/news-story/1fa5e98d45c2a027f4667c1998a140d7

Lets hope it is legislated and becomes an offence so we don't see a repeat of Labor's desperate and disgraceful conduct at the last election with their Medi-scare campaign of lies!

And LW and the other Lefties denied it was a fraud.

Gosh and Shorty had such fantastic scare campaigns and frauds planned to lose the next election.

juliar wrote on Feb 16^th, 2017 at 10:43am:

We lost 14 seats because we're dogshit

Nailed it

To the cross on Labor's grave.

Libs lost seats because Mal stuffed around and didn't rip Shorty to shreds.  But Mal has learnt his lesson now.

juliar wrote on Feb 16^th, 2017 at 11:42am:

To the cross on Labor's grave. Libs lost seats because Mal stuffed around and didn't rip Shorty to shreds.  But Mal has learnt his lesson now.

Good government started  :)

LW,  you seem nonplussed.

So much action you can't keep up ?

Will be the usual story. Rightard government introduce new measures to catch supposed opposition crooks and end up catching............their own people. Remember NSW ICAC. ;D ;D ;D