Independent political candidate, Clive Palmer, doesn’t care that you hate the unsolicited text messages he’s been sending, telling the ABC that he’s keen to send even more in the leadup to the Federal Election.
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Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) has been sending texts containing geo-targeted information which have been received by millions of Australians. For example, those living in or around the Melbourne CBD may have received a text about fast trains.
“Make Australia Great,” the message starts. “Fast trains for Melbourne. One hour to CBD from up to 300kms away. Vote 1 United Australia Party, Clive Palmer.”
Palmer says the messages have been sent to 5.6 million people but doesn’t know how the numbers were obtained, telling the ABC that “distribution lists are generally available through nearly any advertising agency in Sydney“.
“Under the Privacy Act all registered political parties are entitled to contact Australians via text,” he said.
Of all those texts, Palmer says 265,000 recipients went on to visit the UAP website and stayed on there for more than a minute. He also received 3,000 complaints but reckons most of them were a ploy by the trade union to intimidate him. Did it not occur to him that 3,000 people were simply pissed off at receiving unsolicited texts about making Australia great? I guess not.
Unfortunately, you can expect to receive more of them, too. “We’ll be running text messages as we get closer to the election because it’s a way of stimulating debate in our democracy,” Palmer said.
Old mate is running for the Federal Queensland seat of Herbert, and if successful, it will mark his second stint in parliament.
Text messages are one thing, but if Clive starts sending me his stupid fucking memes I’m going to lose it.
