‘Misleading and offensive’: Allegra Spender denounces unauthorised pamphlet as AEC launches investigation

Allegra Spender has denounced “anonymous and misleading” pamphlets that the Australian Electoral Commission says had been distributed in her electorate of Wentworth without authorisation.

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, the independent member for the eastern Sydney seat welcomed an announcement by the AEC that it would be investigating the election material.

“This pamphlet spreads false, misleading and offensive claims about me, and does so anonymously,” she said. “This sort of smear campaign is what turns people off politics. And that’s what we’ve got to stop doing.”

Spender said there were a “variety of false and misleading and offensive claims” in the material, but she would not “talk about them and spread them further”.

Guardian Australia has seen an image of the front of one of the pamphlets, which claims to be produced by the “people of Wentworth for the people of Wentworth” and vows to “expose” Spender “and what she stands for”.

Wentworth, Australia’s smallest electorate by area, takes in suburbs including Darling Point, Double Bay, Rose Bay, Vaucluse, Paddington, Centennial Park, Bondi Beach, Waverley and Bondi Junction.

The AEC said Monday it had received complaints regarding the distribution of an unauthorised pamphlet targeting Spender.

It said more than 47,000 pamphlets had been distributed in the Wentworth area that lacked “any form” of authorisation.

The AEC said it would not comment further while an investigation took place.

In a written statement issued after her media conference, Spender said there were “a number of dirty tricks already in this campaign” that are “clearly designed to ensure a win for the Liberal Party in Wentworth”.

“I have faith that the AEC will get to the bottom of who is behind this document and hold them accountable,” she said. “The public deserves to know who is behind this cowardly attack and what their motivations are.

“All political parties and candidates in Wentworth should call this behaviour out and provide any information they have to the AEC.”

Ro Knox, the Liberal candidate for Wentworth, issued a statement that read: “We’re running a properly authorised campaign and strongly believe it’s important for all election material to have the appropriate authorisation”.

Spender won the seat of Wentworth from the Liberals’ Dave Sharma, now a senator, in the 2022 federal election.

Following a redistribution that took in parts of the electorates of Sydney and Kingsford Smith, the independent MP’s margin stands at 6.8%, the ABC’s Antony Green has estimated.

Do you know more? Email ariel.bogle@theguardian.com