[LINK] I did my duty - and reported spam

[Adam Todd]

At 07:30 AM 24/07/2007, Stilgherrian wrote:

[SNIP]

> > The CEC advises the recipient that Schedule 1 of the
> > Act let's them spam people, but of course the Act says,
> > "Unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be
> > sent" where an email from a registered political party
> > is a commerical electronic message.

[SNIP]

>I understand that Sylvano (and others) wouldn't have wanted to receive this
>email from the CEC. However the intention of the Act is to block
>*commercial* messages (i.e. someone selling something for money) but to
>allow *political* messages.

This is correct.

>Leaving aside the question of whether political messages should be exempted
>from being counted as spam... Why do political messages have to come from "a
>registered political party"?

Because the Statutory laws require that a promotion, advertising, 
poster, banner, how to vote card etc is authorised by the party (or 
candidate) and approved by the Electoral Commissions.

It is an offence with BIG penalties for a person to advertise a 
political issue without the relevant approvals.  That is why all TV 
commercials (and radio ads) have the "Authorised by XYZ spoken by ABC" on them.

How to Vote cards are a big issue, people can't just make them up and 
hand them out, they have to be authorised by a party or candidate and 
approved by the Commission.

>If political messages are allowed, shouldn't we
>*all* be able to send them, no matter whether part of an "organization" or
>not? Perhaps I might be trying to *start* such an organization.

Sure, register it with the Electoral Commission, costs nothing, 
although to register a party you will need to get I think it's 2500 
signatures for NSW State registration and 750 for Federal Registration.

You don't have to have a candidate in an election to authorise 
propaganda, however the commission might not approve it :)

Pay you $$$'000 in candidate fees and hand out your flies :)

I know all about this, I've run as a candidate before :)  I've also 
been asked to run as a candidate several times since.