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Australian Prime-Minister Sends Spam

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the getting-the-word-out dept.

Boricle writes "The Australian Prime Minister has been personally funding the sending of political spam to the members of his electorate. The spam has been sent under contract by his son's company of whom he is 'very proud.' Political Spam is permitted under Australian Spam Legislation."

5 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. The question is how? by GaussianInteger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm interesting in HOW he's able to do this. I mean, is it a clause that SOLELY allows political spam, or is he exploiting a loophole, as a previous poster pointed out, about pre-existing business relationships. If the former is true, then its very amusing how these politicans make "backdoors" for themselves in law.

  2. What's more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the candidates in John Howard's electorate (the Australian version of a Congressional district) is former chairman of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Troy Rollo, who is not happy, John

  3. Small business... by _Hellfire_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I'm very proud of the fact that my son has started a small business in his 20s and I get a real buzz out of the fact that he's prepared to have a go in small business," Mr Howard said.

    "That is what the future of this country is all about."

    This from a man who has made it harder than ever in the history of this country to start and run small business through legislation, taxes, and new paperwork requirements.

    In addition he has announced tax cuts for the middle to higher income earners and no help at all for lower income earners. Small business in Australia is treated like nothing, even though close to half of Australia's economy runs on the back of it.

    The average small business owner is crushed by the weight of ever increasing government reporting requirements and he thinks that small business is the future of the country.

    Yeah, right...

    --
    "And then I visited Wikipedia ...and the next 8 hours are a blur..."
  4. Hmmmmm by Lord+Kano · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Political Spam is permitted under Australian Spam Legislation.

    Sounds like the perfect setup for a legal Joe Job...

    I should email everyone on the planet about this upcoming presidential election. If I can piss enough of the opposition off, my guy will have it in the bag!

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  5. He's not by violet16 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh, there's a backdoor all right. The government passed a law that made it illegal for companies to spam, but not political parties or charities.

    So the Prime Minister is allowed to spam. However, in this case, he hired a company to spam for him -- so it might be illegal. That's why the Opposition is calling for an inquiry.

    Here is the original report, by the way -- the one linked to by the Slashdot story just reports what this one said.

    And you might be interested to know that this is the company that did the spamming.

    --
    I should buy some cement.