A Facebook page purporting to have revealed independent candidates for Darwin council as “paedophile puppets” controlled by Territory Labor, has been referred to the NT Electoral Commission for investigation after breaching the Local Government Act and spreading misinformation.

The post was made on a page called “State of the Territory”, which alleged that a Labor fifth floor staffer told the unidentified author that convicted paedophile and former Labor Party secretary Kent Rowe was running the campaigns of various independent candidates who are secretly aligned with Labor.

The post then attached photos of the candidates with the phrase “pedophile puppets [sic]” scrawled on them.

Rowe, who was convicted in 2022 of repeatedly raping a female relative when she was a child over many years and released from prison earlier this year after serving his sentence, has become a sort of political bogeyman in the council election, with many candidates being accused of hiring him to run their election campaigns.

No evidence has been provided to back up any of the claims.

The State of the Territory post claimed that “Labor power brocker Shlock Sharma [sic]” had “confirmed that convicted pedophile [sic] Kent Rowe” was “back in charge of the Labor machine and driving the local government elections”.

It then went on to accuse independent Darwin council candidates Shani Carson, Nicole Brown and Sam Weston of working with Labor and Rowe.

Territory Labor and the candidates have rejected the claims and filed a formal complaint with the NT Electoral Commission about the post.

In its complaint, Labor president Anthony Venes called on the NTEC to investigate the post and anonymous page and “consider using it as a precedent for addressing similar conduct in future elections”.

“We note the page is unauthorised and engages in politically motivated attacks,” Mr Venes wrote. “We therefore urge you to exercise your powers to compel Meta, as the owner of the platform, to disclose the identity of the page administrator so that appropriate action can be taken against the individual responsible for this content.”

The letter further stated that none of the “individuals named in the post” are members of Labor and “are not receiving any support from our party”. It also said the only person named in the post who is a party member is Shlok Sharma “and he is not a candidate at the upcoming local government elections”.

Shani Carson, who is running for council in the Richardson Ward, told the NT Independent that Rowe is not involved in her campaign in any way and neither is Labor.

Ms Carson said she is friends with Rowe’s wife and former alderman Rebecca Want de Rowe, but that she has not had “anything to do with her” over the past three years. Ms Carson said she had attended some days of Rowe’s criminal rape trial in 2022 to support Ms Want de Rowe as a friend and because Ms Want de Rowe supported her when Ms Carson’s husband Patrick Carson was wrongfully charged with rape, which he was acquitted over and is currently suing the government for malicious prosecution.

Ms Carson said she never had “much to do” with Kent Rowe and does not like him.

“The [Supreme] Court found him guilty so that’s where I sit,” she said. “He didn’t appeal that decision so I’m assuming he knew he did it. I respect the decision of the court.”

Ms Carson filed a formal complaint to the NTEC stating that the claims about her on the Facebook page are false, including that she was “Labor’s replacement for Kent Rowe’s wife”; that she was affiliated with the Labor Party; that Kent Rowe has a role in her campaign; and that she was a “close friend of the paedophile couple”.

Another post contained statements about Ms Carson and her husband that she also raised with the NTEC as untrue.

“While mentioning the charges in the matter described above, the post omits that the charges [against Patrick Carson] and their related prosecution form part of a malicious prosecution claim currently before the NT Supreme Court, details of which are part of the public record,” Ms Carson wrote to the NTEC.

“The post, and the page from which it was made, contain no authorisation statement.”

NT Electoral Commission public awareness manager Kostas Trikilis confirmed the NTEC has received complaints about the Facebook page and that it was in breach of the Local Government Act for failing to have an “authorisation statement” on its election material.

“The NTEC has reached out to the page to inform them as a matter of priority, the material must be removed or authorised in accordance with the Local Government Act,” he said.

“The NTEC have also reported the page to Facebook.”

The unknown administrator of the State of the Territory page could face a maximum fine of $18,900 for publishing campaign material without an authorisation statement and another $18,900 fine for publishing and distributing campaign material that is “likely to mislead/deceive/improperly interfere [with] a voter casting a vote or contains an untrue statement”.

“If a person believes a post may constitute defamation, they may wish to seek legal advice regarding their rights under the Defamation Act,” Mr Trikilis added.

Ms Brown, who is running for mayor and for council in the Lyons Ward, said the false claims made by the Facebook page were “hurtful” and defamatory.

“People read these things,” she said. “My family is upset, I have a child who has seen this.

“I have never seen something so vicious in my life, the politics playing out behind the scenes [of the council election] is like Game of Thrones.

“I feel good about the campaign, but it’s disheartened me to think people can be so unkind and unfair. I want to empower everybody around me, so to read that I’m disempowering women in these false claims is not fair. It’s a sucker punch.”