Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly using spam text messages to capture rightwing vote ahead of election, expert says
University of Queensland law professor says United Australia party trying to ‘leverage attention’ and ‘rebuild influence’ among social conservatives
Text messages sent by Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly to millions of Australians over the past fortnight may be a way to target rightwing voters in a highly competitive field ahead of the next federal election, an electoral expert suggests.
Since Kelly joined Palmer’s United Australia party in late August, two text messages have been sent; the first telling people not to trust the major parties, while the second linked to a UAP website hosting the Therapeutic Goods Administration vaccination report that outlines every adverse reaction to the jab.
University of Queensland law professor, Graeme Orr, said the motivation for sending these out was to draw attention to the party ahead of what would be a tight contest for rightwing votes at the federal election.
“It’s about leveraging attention – having media and social media talking about Mr Palmer and Kelly,” he said.
‘“ trying to rebuild his influence by tickling protest voters who might otherwise go to One Nation, the Liberal Democrats and the anti-vax IMOP party. There is a lot of competition on the socially conservative side of politics, and he wants first-mover advantage. He may be hoping someone like Mr Kelly is elected senator under his banner. But even if his candidates score under 4% and lose their deposits, it’s buying attention for Mr Palmer.”
The message sent on 27 August declared “you can never trust the Liberals, Labor or Greens again”, linking to the UAP’s website, and one on 4 September provided a link to a UAP page summarising the Australian government’s Covid-19 vaccines adverse events report.
Both were properly authorised by Craig Kelly, the federal leader of the Clive Palmer-chaired UAP. Both links on the text messages direct to the party’s membership sign-up page. Palmer has said the party has added about 30,000 new members since Kelly joined the party. The sign-up form is not too dissimilar from other political parties. It requests name, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, state and federal electorates.
It also asks for, but doesn’t require, other information including social media profiles.
Unlike the Liberals, Labor and the Greens, there is no fee to join the United Australia party.
Orr said everyone who signs up for political parties know they’re signing over their personal information, and he doesn’t believe the collection of membership information is the motivating factor behind the text messages.
“Spam text messages upset most people. But for Mr Palmer, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Lacking an organic movement, or infrastructure for a GetUp or trade union-style call centre staffed by volunteers, he pays to send millions of untargeted texts,” he said.
“In the end, this kind of campaigning is all about money. It is a continuum with advertisements over the last year in newspapers. They have little direct effect. But every time Alan Jones refers to one, or every time even the Guardian mentions it, it’s leveraged attention. We really need electioneering spending limits nationally, like exist at state level in NSW or Queensland.”
The government has recently come under pressure to tackle unsolicited text messages from UAP, which the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have been unable to sanction because anti-spam laws don’t apply to political causes.
The ACMA and the AEC both indicated they had limited powers to act. The AEC said it had received complaints about the messages, and was responding to those complaints.
The ACMA said the Spam Act does not apply to messages that are not commercial in nature. Australia also has no truth in political advertising laws, meaning the regulators have no role in factchecking the ads.
Telstra already blocks millions of scam messages on its network, but a spokesperson said the company did not have the authority to block messages of the kind the UAP was sending out.
“We don’t have the authority to block messages from political parties,” a spokesperson said.
Political parties have also expressed limited interest in cracking down on unsolicited messages sent by parties.
A Senate committee examining Senator Stirling Griff’s legislation to allow people to unsubscribe from political text messages rejected the bill in April last year, suggesting it would be better reviewed by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters as part of its review into the 2019 election.
Both committees ultimately didn’t address whether political text messages should be opt-out, with the electoral committee pointing back to the Senate committee’s recommendation that the Griff legislation not proceed. This came despite the electoral matters committee report highlighting that ACMA received 1,338 complaints about texts and emails from the United Australia party at the last election.
The Greens deputy leader, Larissa Waters, said the party supported giving people the ability to unsubscribe from unsolicited text messages from political parties.
Anna Johnston, founder of Salinger Privacy, said the laws need updating.
“The Spam Act has a carve out for political parties, as does the Privacy Act. But fixing the Privacy Act alone won’t stop those kind of random-number messages, because the protections in the Privacy Act hang off the definition of ‘personal information’, which itself depends on whether a person can be identified or not,” she said.
Guardian Australia
