United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly defends spam messages

Newly minted United Australia Party MP Craig Kelly says he makes no apology for sending spam messages to voters urging them to back his anti-lockdown campaign, claiming they should be more concerned about their privacy rights over vaccines.

Mr Kelly, who does not believe in the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and has spruiked alternative unproven treatments in contradiction of the Commonwealth’s health advice, dismissed complaints about the unsolicited text messages saying he was “absolutely not” sorry and the practice was “100 per cent legal”.

“If they’re concerned about Australians privacy, they should be standing up and calling for an end to vaccine passports,” Mr Kelly, the member for Hughes in south-west Sydney, said.

United Australia Party MP Craig Kelly says he is “absolutely” not sorry about sending unsolicited text messages to voters spruiking his anti-lockdown policies.Credit:Rohan Thomson

“I find it a bit ironic that people are upset about their privacy by getting a text message, but by the same token, they’re absolutely silent about Australians having to show their health records before they could go and get a job across the state border.”

The Australian Media and Communications Authority said as of Friday, it had received more than 300 complaints about Mr Kelly’s messages and registered political parties were exempt from most requirements under the Spam Act.

The texting drive is Mr Kelly’s first political campaign as the frontman of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, which he joined last week after resigning from the Coalition in February following criticism he had been sharing misinformation about COVID-19. He has said he intends to rely on a war chest, largely financed by Mr Palmer who spent more than $83 million contesting the 2019 federal election, where he failed to win a seat.

Complaints rolled in on social media in recent days as people began receiving texts from Mr Kelly saying: “You can never trust the Liberals, Labor or Greens again” with a link directing them to the UAP website. Among those to voice their displeasure was NSW Liberal Environment Minister Matt Kean who on Saturday tweeted: “Please stop spamming me bird brain @CraigKellyMP”.

Mr Kelly said he had not bought a list of phone numbers, but rather had sent the messages using software that generated phone numbers at random.

It is not uncommon for political parties to send blanket messages or phone calls with pre-recorded messages, particularly around election time. In addition to the Spam Act exemption, political parties do not have to comply with the Do Not Call Register and the obligations in the Privacy Act 1988 in how they collect, use, disclose or store personal information. The federal government is reviewing the Privacy Act, including whether the exemption for political parties should be maintained.

Mr Palmer has repeatedly used unsolicited text messages as a campaigning tool, most recently ahead of the 2020 Queensland election when his company Mineralogy spammed people all over the country with messages accusing Labor of having a “death tax” and linking to a how-to-vote card. The federal Labor Party also came under fire for the practice in the 2016 election with the so-called “Mediscare” text campaign, which purported to be from the government agency and claimed then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had plans to privatise it.

Mr Kelly said the UAP messaging campaign had been successful in recruiting members “by the thousands” and claimed “the way we’re headed we’ll have more members than” the Labor or Liberal parties. When asked how many members UAP had, Mr Kelly said: “I haven’t got the numbers today”.

On the issue of spam political phone calls and messages, the Australian Electoral Commission says it does not disclose the telephone numbers of electors, and it has “no knowledge of where or how a registered political party obtains telephone numbers of electors”.

Meanwhile, Federal Parliament passed a raft of changes last week to minor party registration requirements and electoral processes ahead of the upcoming election. The changes, backed by Labor, include a requirement for minor parties to have at least 1500 members to be registered and new parties will be prevented from registering names too similar to those already in use. The pre-poll timeframe, which allows people to cast votes before polling day, was also reduced to 12 days.

The Greens were among the minor parties to decry the changes to the registration rules, with Senator Larissa Waters calling it a “blatant and utterly shameless attempt [by the major parties] to shore up their power”.

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Lisa Visentin is a federal political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, covering education and communications.

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