Before former Independent MP Rob Oakeshott declared his intentions to contest the seat of Cowper, currently held by Nationals MP Luke Hartsuyker, Ms Tips noted that Oakeshott’s website RobOakeshott.com had been reclaimed by a company offering to help men out with their erections.
Oakeshott himself tweeted at the time that he wasn’t aware of it and asked for help in reclaiming his website.
Crikey’s own Josh Taylor, inspired by a recent episode of the very excellent podcast Reply All, decided to see if he could figure out who had purchased the site, and why it had been bought. We emailed the administrator listed on the page’s Who Is listing but didn’t hear back for a while. All was forgotten while Oakeshott announced his candidacy, but then on Friday afternoon, we got an email back saying that the domain had been bought at auction for US$160 in May last year and then leased out to the erectile assistance company.
Once the lease was pointed out to the owner of the domain, the site was quickly pulled down. We understand now that the independent candidate for Cowper is in the process of reclaiming his domain with less than a week left until the election.
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