Hello Everyone,
I have just finished a phone conversation with one of my local MPs, and apparently there is something we can do! It's a little thing, but if LOTS of people participate it will become very, very annoying for the perpetrators.
If you had a "No Junk Mail" sign (or equivalent) on your letterbox, you can complain to the local council that you received unsolicited mail. The offender is fined $200 (in my area anyway). I am not sure if it's $200 all up, or $200 for each incident. If each incident is fined separately the number of complaints will add up and hurt their hip pockets...
So, even if only 5 people complain they'll be $1000 out of pocket.
If 25 people complain that's $5000.
If 50 people complain it's a sizzling $10,000
There are 118,000 people living in my municipality. If all of them got the leaflet, only 5% have to complain for the fine to be a million dollars.
Again, I'm happy for people to use my example as a template. Copy and paste into your word processor, add your details, print, put into envelope, find your local council address here: Find your local council, stick a stamp on and post. (You could also send them an email but they tend to take print more seriously.) Hopefully you've just effectively sent them a fine of $200 dollars. Feel good? Thought so.
The down side is that it is only a valid course of action if you already had a "No Junk Mail" sign.
Here it is:
To whom it may concern,
We have a sign on our letterbox that clearly states that we do not wish to receive unsolicited material. On Saturday 8th of March we received a leaflet from an anti-abortion group that can only be described as horrifically explicit. The leaflet was authorised by a D. Kelly and the person who runs the website referred to in the leaflet (www.tellthetruth.org.au) is a Ron Van Wegen. Normally I simply recycle unwanted junk mail but this leaflet was so upsetting that I am extremely angry that it was delivered against our clear and specific wishes.
I believe there is a fine for delivering unsolicited mail. I send you this letter in the hope that the local law will be upheld in this matter.
There is only one R Van Wegen in the white pages:
*Deleted*
Whois details for the website domain:
Registrant Contact Name: Margaret Tighe
Registrant Email: rtl@rtlaust.com
Tech ID 2146197395
Tech Name: Ronald Van Wegen
Tech Email: *deleted*
"rtlaust" stands for Right to Life Australia their website is www.rtlaust.com, Margaret Tighe is the president. Their details are a matter of public record: ABN 12774010375
Again, I hope the local law prevails in this particular instance.
Yours sincerely,
Name,
Address,
Contact details
________________________
That's it people! Post away!
Cheers
Emervents
I believe there is a fine for delivering unsolicited mail. I send you this letter in the hope that the local law will be upheld in this matter.
There is only one R Van Wegen in the white pages:
*Deleted*
Whois details for the website domain:
Registrant Contact Name: Margaret Tighe
Registrant Email: rtl@rtlaust.com
Tech ID 2146197395
Tech Name: Ronald Van Wegen
Tech Email: *deleted*
"rtlaust" stands for Right to Life Australia their website is www.rtlaust.com, Margaret Tighe is the president. Their details are a matter of public record: ABN 12774010375
Again, I hope the local law prevails in this particular instance.
Yours sincerely,
Name,
Address,
Contact details
________________________
That's it people! Post away!
Cheers
Emervents
Posts
9 comments:
Emervents
I love your posts on the tellthetruth blog, keep up the good work. I am glad someone has put the effort into finding out what can legally be done regarding the sick mail drops.
Ron is a bundle of laughs with his threats and responses to his personal information but its out there for everyone to see without putting more effort then needed into it.
Emervents is there something that those of us who don't have a 'no junk mail' sign up can do based on the pure discustingness of the pamphlet? I would like to do something more then just comment on blogs about this.
ps. sorry for the anonymous post but i don't like existing on the net where I can help it.
As far as I know, the only thing you can do if you do not have a junk mail sign is complain to your MP and write to your local papers, if you experienced distress, be vocal about it.
There is another way to help which is to join ProChoiceVic: www.ProChoiceVic.org.au
They will let us know if anything extra is cooking :-)
And I don't mind anonymous posters if they're nice! :-)
Thing is im not really pro choice of pro life im just anti receiving nasty disgusting crap in my mailbox that clearly is false. Being gay i will never have to deal with the issue myself.
As for nice i am not really known for it though i am glad you found the whois info and ABN stuff useful in your letter. Yes its all public information but it saves other people having to find it if its posted.
Oh, it's YOU! Thank you for that info. Extremely useful, but you already knew that.
You might be gay, but someone you know might have to deal with the issue, you wouldn't want them to have to give birth if they didn't want to?
Anyway, I'm not legally savvy I'm afraid so I have no idea if it's illegal to post material that is both vulgar and false.
However, I am writing to the therapeutic goods people (forgotten their names) to see if they can't be had on the "misinformation regarding the risks of a medical procedure" front.
It's worth a shot.
Thanks again.
you are right about that. but its their decision it would not bother me either way. i just don't believe religion should be a deciding factor.
i think there might be some legal options on vulgar and false i think it depends if the warning was considered good enough. as for false if they were asking for donations it could possibly come under extortion with the wording. if it went to court a good lawyer could battle almost anything.
as for your last point yes worth a shot thats for sure.
I wish i could find more info but digging any deeper would start getting into the illegal area of information gathering. but i think his address is enough.
Shame the media hasn't done what they usually do and go harras him at his house. Given the apparent low intelligence of ron his email and blog passwords are probably something easily guessable to do with prolife I wouldn't be surprised if someone breaks into his accounts. But then that is in the realm of illegal but it would give me a laugh.
Also if you haven't seen it yet there are some posts on forums.ebay regarding the letter.
http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500076086&tstart=0&mod=1205288039698
:-) I'm happy for their religion to be a deciding factor for them, I just get miffed when they try to pass religious laws in our secular society.
Thanks for the eBay thread.
Awesome work.
Since receiving their very poorly labelled pamphlet, I've been desperately trying to find a way to get my point of view across to this group.
A fine sounds perfect.
Thank you for the information.
xxx scarlett
(sorry to post anonymously, but who knows what this group is willing to do next!)
I agree with Scarlett - awesome work! All your letters and information have not only been interesting and educational to read, but very helpful to me in sending my own letters to my MP, newspapers and council.
I received a phone call from my council today, in response to the letter I sent based on your template, telling me that there was nothing they could do as this kind of material is deemed political and therefore escapes the fine! Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with this response.
If you haven't already seen it, I thought you might be interested in a letter that has been published in the 50/50 section of the Herald Sun today by John A. Gill of Mt Waverly. He states that he recently read that 'every week in Victoria, enough children to fill a primary school are aborted' (sound familiar?). He then follows this with, 'Victoria, the state to be aborted, but not adopted'.
Post a Comment