Clive Palmer defends spam texts: ‘No different to how-to-vote cards’

Trumpet of Patriots has sent 17 million political spam text messages. The Electoral Commission can’t stop them. Recipients can’t block them. Clive Palmer says he’s just following other parties’ lead. LISTEN to his defence and VOTE in our poll.

Billionaire Clive Palmer has defended bombarding Australians with millions of election text messages, insisting it is “the same as giving out how-to-vote cards.”

Mr Palmer, chairman of the Trumpet of Patriots, claimed he had decided to “follow the lead” of other major and minor parties in recent weeks and engage in SMS advertising.

“They (other parties) didn’t seem to get an angry reaction – but we got an angry reaction. That could’ve been because our policies are the most pertinent ones for Australia,” Mr Palmer told The Daily Telegraph.

He confirmed his party had sent “something like 17 million text messages … and there were about 8000 complaints. So that’s not too bad.

“Those 8000 people I have concluded are unlikely to vote for us” Mr Palmer said.

Australian businessman and the chairman of the Trumpet of Patriots Party, Clive Palmer, has defended the spam text messages sent to millions of Australians. (Photo by Dan Peled/Getty Images)

“I haven’t got anybody’s number. There are a number of services that are available to send marketing text messages to the Australian population. They would’ve had many texts from the other parties … it’s the same as giving out how-to-vote cards and things like that,” he said.

The spam text messages from the party in recent days promise to “solve housing”, “super for deposit”, “3% interest rates” and “cut immigration by 80%.”

Others reference policies including “take your super anytime”, “double fees for foreign students” and “free education for Australians.”

Each message is authorised by Harry Fong – the Trumpet of Patriots Senate candidate in Queensland.

Senior economist Saul Eslake was one of the people who has spoken publicly about receiving the messages.

“Why am I getting regular servings of drivel from Harry Fong on behalf of Clive Palmer? I haven’t signed up to any mailing list of his (or indeed any other political party).”

The text messages have been authorised by H Fong. Harry Fong is the

In another angry response to the unsolicited messages – Mr Fong’s personal mobile number was posted on social media.

“Harry has got the best publicity of any Trumpet of Patriots candidate in the country. All the newspapers are running his name. That’s really great isn’t it?” Mr Palmer remarked.

The Australian Electoral Commission has already confirmed political parties are “exempt from the Spam Act and the Privacy Act and are able to send unsolicited text messages without an opt out option.”

Mr Palmer said: “we will not concede that we realistically can’t win seats. We’ve already got a Senator Ralph Babet. And I’m sure he’ll have more Senators after this election. Somebody has to worry about the country. We are going further and further into debt, and we need to have solutions.”

Originally published as Clive Palmer defends spam texts: ‘No different to how-to-vote cards’