Liberal Party spam email that a child used for a charity fundraiser

The Liberal Party has been sending unsolicited political emails to a child’s email address that was used to sign up for a Cancer Council fundraising drive, with the charity admitting it has had “data exchanges” with other entities.

The arrangement sheds light on another way political parties appear to be harvesting information to contact voters who had not consented to communications. The Liberal Party did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2013, Matt’s child volunteered to raise money for Cancer Council NSW through a fundraising drive organised by their school. They signed up for the charity’s online fundraising platform using a unique email address that was solely for this purpose and which would forward any correspondence to their parents’ inbox.

Matt told Crikey this email address was never used again for any other purpose, and had only received a single email from Cancer Council NSW at the time.

A decade later, in 2023, the child’s email address received an email from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price sent using a federal Liberal Party email address. With the subject line “Voting Information”, Price gave instructions on how to vote against the Voice to Parliament referendum.

Late last month, the email address received another message from the Liberal Party. This time it was sent by the NSW Liberals’ candidate for Newcastle, Asarri McPhee, sharing the party’s postal vote application and policy points.

Matt said he and his partner were “outraged” that the Liberal Party was contacting their child, and that the only way the party could have obtained this email was via the Cancer Council.

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“You’ve got school kids signing up to do a beautiful thing, raise money for the Cancer Council, and somehow the Liberal Party has got this information?” he said.

A spokesperson for Cancer Council NSW told Crikey it had not given data directly to the Liberal Party, but that it had previously given data from people who had consented to other third parties.

“We do not share our data with any other organisation or third party. Whilst many years ago, we have engaged in data exchanges with other charities and like-minded philanthropic organisations, we no longer do this,” it said in an email.

“All data handling at Cancer Council NSW is and has always been done in strict adherence to our privacy policy and relevant government privacy laws and guidelines.”

Cancer Council NSW’s privacy collection statement says personal information may be given to “third parties [that] may provide us with services, or where we participate in data cooperatives and swaps”.

However, Cancer Council did not say which organisations had taken part in a data exchange or what the conditions of that exchange were.

ANU political lecturer Dr Daniel Casey said political parties’ procurement of data, such as email addresses, may hurt more than it helps.

“When political parties purchase or obtain email addresses from third parties, they need to realise that they are probably pissing off more voters than they gain. It comes across as slightly dodgy,” he said.

But, he pointed out, it remains one of the dwindling ways that political parties are able to communicate to voters.

“On the other hand, with the decline of traditional media, landlines and people actually using physical mail, it is becoming harder and harder for political parties to reach voters. Our democracy requires two-way communication between voters and parties/candidates.”

Casey welcomed Cancer Council NSW’s decision to stop sharing this data.

“It’s good that the Cancer Council has realised that sharing their supporters’ email addresses is a sure-fire way to lose trust!”