2 days Ago By Andrew Brown and Tess Ikonomou
Banning mass election texts sent to voters' devices by Clive Palmer's Trumpet of Patriots party would be a "reasonable thing" to do, the prime minister says. Login or signup to continue reading But while he backs an end to the spam, Anthony Albanese says he is not sure how outlawing the unsolicited texts would fit with election legislation. "I wish that were the case (that the messages would be banned).
I'm not sure that that fits with our democracy and the capacity to campaign," he told ABC Radio on Wednesday. "I certainly think that would be a reasonable thing to do ..
. I'm happy with that, but I'm not sure that it would fit in with other legal requirements about people having access." Clive Palmer's party has been sending out a flurry of text messages in a bid to win over undecided voters before Saturday's election.
The mining magnate said before Easter he had already sunk $60 million into advertising for his party, which takes in many policies similar to those of US President Donald Trump. The prime minister said he had not received the Trumpet of Patriot texts, but his fiancee Jodie Haydon had. "For the literally tens of millions of dollars that Trumpet of Patriots is spending on this campaign, it's an extraordinary vanity exercise we're seeing by Clive Palmer," Mr Albanese said.
"I expect that they won't be terribly successful." At the 2022 election, Mr Palmer spent more than $120 million in advertising for his previous outfit, the United Australia Party, which only yielded one senator in parliament. While unsolicited text messages are "vote killers" during election campaigns, according political analyst Kos Samaras, Australians are unable to opt out of the texts.
The Australian Electoral Commission has no insight into how political parties obtain mobile phone numbers, saying it does not provide the information. "Political parties are exempt from the Spam Act and the Privacy Act and are able to send unsolicited text messages without an opt-out option," an electoral commission spokesperson said. "Any changes to these laws would be a matter for the parliament to consider.
" Australian laws that regulate spam and data collection do not cover political messaging during campaigns due to exemptions in the legislation. Mr Samaras said campaign texts were not at all effective. "It's basically probably one of the quickest ways you can send a message to people that you are impersonal, that you lack the capacity to speak to them at a face-to-face level," he told AAP.
"It is an absolute waste of money, an absolute waste of time, and a vote killer." "It annoys voters, turns voters off, and for some reason, political parties just near the end of a campaign want to grab onto anything they can use to get a last-minute message out," he said. Australian Associated Press Daily Today's top stories curated by our news team.
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