P2P-Zone - PM's son spamming voters email for dad

A Sydney-based software company, one of whose directors is the Prime Minister's son, has been "spamming" voters with Liberal Party election material.

Tim Howard's company, Net Harbour, is taking advantage of a loophole in the Government's anti-spam laws to open a new front in the election propaganda war, via unsolicited email.

Last night the NSW director of the party, Scott Morrison, confirmed it had entered into a "a contractual arrangement with Net Harbour", involving a curious round-robin of payments.

"Because it's a contractual arrangement involving the PM's son," Mr Morrison said, "... and involves the Bennelong campaign, Mr Howard took the decision to personally fund the service, to provide the funds to enable us to do that, out of his own pocket.

"He made the funds available to the division once we entered into the agreement, to make sure the division wasn't out of pocket."

Mr Morrison refused to say how much Mr Howard was paying the party to pay his son's company.

Laws passed last year made it illegal for commercial operators to send unsolicited emails, but allowed an exemption for charities and political parties.
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A spokesman for Net Harbour said yesterday that it was the only consultancy in Australia employing the American-style campaigning technique, and was working for the Liberal Party.

On its site, Net Harbour promises to deliver "complete constituent contact" via its "ePolitics" operation. It describes itself as working "in partnership with conservative political parties at electoral, state and national level to deliver online campaigns".

The deal between the state Liberal branch and the Howards, senior and junior, was news to the federal organisation.

The party's federal director, Brian Loughnane, said yesterday afternoon that he was not aware of a contractual arrangement

between the party and Tim Howard's company. "I'll have to investigate," he said. "But it could be somebody's just doing it as a favour ... In the normal course of events I'd expect to know. I sign the cheques. I haven't signed any cheques for Net Harbour."

One recipient of the e-bulletins - which appear under the letterhead and picture of the Prime Minister - said she had been spammed twice in the past month.Alana Hay, of Sylvania, said she was angry about it.

Although the emails purported to come from "John Howard, MP, Member for Bennelong", she neither lived nor worked within the electorate.

Ms Hay said she had no political connections and had certainly not sought Liberal Party campaign information. "What I want to know is, how did they get my address?"

No answers to her questions were forthcoming yesterday.

Net Harbour's spokesman promised the company's managing director, Brad Mancken, would call back, but he did not.

Mr Morrison refused to say how Net Harbour got hold of personal email details, or how the party was able to send spam referring to the recipient by her first name.smh

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Apparently our Australian PM - little Johnny Howard - has exploited a loophole in recently introduced anit-spam legislation which exempts charities and - wait for it - political organisations. So he's spamming the hell out of voters in his electorate with party propaganda. And it seems he's somehow managed to tie email addresses to first names, resulting in *personalised* spam and some pretty ticked off voters. It get's better - he's paying his son's company to do the mailing!link

more scumbag tactics from this snarky fucking weasel.. :dunno: