Lib moderate sends how-to-vote cards preferencing anti-vax, pro-Putin Palmer candidate

Forget the hand-wringing over preferences in under-threat Liberal seats including Tim Wilson’s Goldstein and Josh Frydenberg’s Kooyong. Higgins MP and potential future frontbencher Katie Allen has been forced to execute a monumental backflip after issuing how-to-vote cards preferencing a United Australia Party candidate who has since gone bad. Very bad.

After last week’s ballot draw, Allen’s office reported UAP candidate Ingram Spencer to the federal police for allegedly acting aggressively towards people and “scaring everyone”. Days later, he was arrested for allegedly using a carriage service to harass someone and placed behind bars ahead of a first court hearing later this week.

So imagine the surprise among Higgins’ Liberal members and broader constituents when tens of thousands of them received Liberal how-to-vote cards instructing them to preference Spencer, a QAnon-following Vladimir Putin admirer, ahead of Labor and the Greens.

Allen, a paediatric allergies specialist, called Labor’s candidate for Higgins, infectious diseases doctor Michelle Ananda-Rajah, a “national disgrace” for questioning the efficacy of AstraZeneca in February 2021. No doubt she would also have strong opinions on Spencer’s social media postings.

Spencer, who is a former PwC director and was a Liberal Party member until late last year, has labelled the Pfizer vaccine “extremely unsafe” and claimed it killed 3 per cent of those who received it. The hopeful for Clive Palmer’s UAP shared a social media post appearing to celebrate Shane Warne’s death because Warne supported anti-vaxxer Novak Djokovic’s deportation. Spencer has also shared material questioning whether the Port Arthur massacre happened and propagated Russian military propaganda in the war in Ukraine.

All normal posts from an extremely normal fellow.

Allen’s office says the voting cards were already at the printers by the time Spencer allegedly harassed people. Future how-to-vote cards will have the candidate in last place.

But with tens of thousands of the cards already in letter boxes, hasn’t that horse already bolted?