Pauline Hanson has built a lucrative career on being a grubby troll, frequently with the help of commercial media who happily disseminate her appalling views while professing to abhor them.
In June, though, the racist anti-vaxxer went too far even for the Nine Network, which dumped her from its breakfast television show after she described public housing tenants in lockdown in Victoria as “drug addicts” and “alcoholics” who didn’t speak English and didn’t follow social distancing guidelines.
In July, according to a good get by Nine’s Rob Harris today, she decided to go further and troll the people she’d smeared, sending them stubby holders accompanied by a note “No Hard Feelings”, as if she was the one who’d been offended and abused.
Complaining that people are alcoholics but then sending them a beer holder is classic trolling, particularly when you know perfectly well that many residents of the affected buildings are Muslims.
Because the buildings were in lockdown, Australia Post delivered the addressed items from Hanson to Melbourne city council officers who were overseeing the lockdown and delivery of goods to the residents. As Harris details, after discovering the contents of the Hanson letters, they decided not to distribute them, eliciting legal threats from Australia Post.
Harris links it to the possibility that federal Labor might seek to disallow Senate regulations which allowed Australia Post to reduce service frequency, meaning Australia Post and the government would need One Nation support in the Senate.
Australia Post prefers to frame it as an issue of its obligation to make sure all mail is delivered. Usually it can do that because it controls deliveries; in this case it didn’t.
There’s a pretty fundamental point here: the postal service is a network that should operate regardless of the content that is distributed across it. Unless the goods are dangerous, the network operator doesn’t decide what does and doesn’t get delivered. Offensive material gets posted and delivered all the time. In this case, another public institution, a local council, has intervened to decide something shouldn’t be delivered.
From the council’s point of view, distributing material intended to troll and offend the residents of the locked-down blocks was probably not conducive to public order. Quite possibly council officers were correct, especially after consulting with police, as Harris reports they did.
But ultimately the decision was a paternalistic and patronising one, made on behalf of people who’d already been infantilised and singled out by government.
Maybe there’s a more fundamental point, which is that political parties and politicians routinely use communications networks to bombard people with unwanted material — junk mail, robo-calls, online and media ads.
All generously paid for by taxpayers, and all exempted from basic consumer protections like privacy laws, laws against misleading advertising or Do Not Call restrictions. There’s a pretty good case for applying all three of those protections to political parties, as well as cutting off taxpayer funding for distribution of electoral material.
That won’t do much for Australia Post’s bottom line, however. The postal service loses huge amounts of money on letter delivery services now (as its effort to reduce frequency shows), but delivery of junk mail continues to be a strong source of income — though not as much as parcel delivery, which generates tens of millions in profit for the company and probably much more so in 2020 than in previous years.
A precedent where delivery of junk mail could be blocked on taste grounds would not be a happy one for Australia Post. And it doesn’t get more junk than the garbage issuing from One Nation.
It’s a tricky one but I think the Council made the correct call. The residents were already very anxious and felt discriminated against by being locked down without notice. If the the agency responsible for providing food and services had then delivered the stubby holder with an ambiguous but insulting message on the side, I think the residents would have been even more upset and insulted. Australia Post could have held onto them and delivered them after lockdown. After all its letter service is pretty ordinary in these days of big bonuses and lower standards of service. If they arrived late no one would have been surprised.
So you think the Council should be able to block or delay mail delivery to anyone? Or just the folks locked in their homes?
The lockdown is (just) justifiable AND legal. This is neither.
Correction – it should not be legal, but in this country it may well be.
The area of “legal” is a bit ambiguous, however, the threats issued by Australia Post towards to volunteers and council workers delivering essential supplies to the locked down, distressed inhabitants of the towers, was both unpalatable unseemly and downright stupid.
The chance that a very distressed Muslim refugee family, locked into one of the very small apartments in the towers, possibly suffering from PTSD, receiving one of “Our Pauline’s” ugly smirk on the side of a “stubby holder” would react badly was high. All they really had to do was watch the idiot box, anyhow.
I can see James Ashby and our Pauline eagerly anticipating the negative response, the more negative the better, relishing the sheer delight of the opportunity of being able to use their “ungrateful bludgers diatribe” regarding refugees.
To have all that publicity ruined, just imagine how disappointed they were, and what they had to say to someone in Australia Post who was desperate to shore up One Nation’s votes in the senate to enable Australia Post to cut services, further.
Still, they should not have blocked the mail.
But it is junk mail, without any person appearing in the address line (“to the householder”).
Why not just advise all residents they have un-addressed mail being held in the entry foyer, and unless they specifically request it delivered to their door, it will be binned?
Who could complain?
PH was simply trying to cause further offence, and the council should not facilitate that.
No I don’t think the Council should be able to block delivery of mail.
But the circumstances around the lockdown were exceptional and were very difficult for the people experiencing it. If the Council had delivered a gift from Pauline Hanson when they were delivering essential items such as food, the recipients who already felt they were unfairly picked on would have seen it as another kick in the guts from the people who are supposed to be there to support them. After all, just about everyone in the towers has been a target for Hanson’s ignorant comments, whether they are Muslim, black, aboriginal, don’t speak much English, experiencing mental health issues, domestic violence, etc.
Australian Post could just have hung on to the delivery and made it after the lockdown. After all it wasn’t something urgently needed like all the other services being delivered during lockdown.
JMNO I agree with this totally, what PH did is tantamount to bullying, yes it’s trolling but too me it has a vindictive & nasty edge to it..
I would suggest there maybe a discrimination case in it, as well it wasn’t at that time what one would call a “necessary delivery,” especially at a time when the food & necessities be being delivered was in some cases seriously misdirected…
There may be junk mail sent in the post & Aust post make a lot out of it, but this has a new level, maybe it’s time to reassess who or what their services are really intended to be targeted at…..
Hanson could’ve spent taxpayer money on something useful for those in lockdown (biscuits, powdered milk, teabags) but instead chose to unleash the usual venom.
Here is an excerpt from Auspost’s own regulations:
Section 3 – Other goods prohibited or restricted in postal services
D3.9 – Physically offensive articles
D3.11 – Unsolicited indecent or offensive material
Good to see some facts quoted. But still, the items in question are stubby holders (which are not restricted to use with alcoholic beverages only despite the implication of the article) and which are printed with words which in most contexts would not bother anyone. So it seems very unlikely the items fall into the quoted categories unless – and I’m sure this is not the case – all unsolicited material is banned separately from all indecent and all offensive material.
Oh, it’s offensive SSR, and its intent was to offend. Crime and motive established.
“No Hard Feelings”
That sets an awfully low bar for offensive. Is there anything that’s not equally offensive, at least to someone?
Indeed Zut, using a carriage service for these purposes, it could well be argued, is against the law. Certainly I think it was offensive, and in this case I am closer to the reasonable disinterested observer than those who received them. Hanson should be charged on that basis, and she can claim victimhood status again. Just as she likes it.
But imagine a life where your main purpose is just being a victim all the time. The karmic return of her trolling is that she never gets to get away from herself, for the term of her natural life. Wake up and smell the roses, Pauline. This is no life.
Agreed, what a passive aggressive move by Hanson
How about ‘No Junk Mail’. Because it’s junk. Actual spam. Enough of the pussyfoot. There’s bending over and being bent over.
This might conceivably be a case where sending these articles in the circumstances amounts to an offence under the Criminal Code Act 1995. This provides:
471.12 Using a postal or similar service to menace, harass or cause offence
A person commits an offence if:
(a) the person uses a postal or similar service; and
(b) the person does so in a way (whether by the method of use or the content of a communication, or both) that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.
Assuming the case could be made out under the terms of s 471.12 and a prosecution was brought, perhaps Hanson might want to raise implied freedom of political communication. Would be interesting to see what the High Court might make of that.
Yes, I’d like that the point litigated.
As for legality, even Customs cannot open something in the post – a postal worker must perform that physical act.
Once done though then it is entirely a matter for Customs, or a similarly legislated entity, to decide on the contents.
It is highly unlikely that a local council employee is so empowered.
Yes, it’s conceivable that law is relevant, though getting a conviction would require finding that sending a stubby holder with a trite three-word phrase that is generally not offensive to anyone is “in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive”, and that was the sender’s intention. My guess is that Hanson would regard any such attempted prosecution as a golden opportunity, it would play to her strengths wonderfully. But this is all besides the point of the current argument, which is about whether it was all right to refuse to deliver the items.
Some years ago I wrote a letter to The Age taking issue with an op-ed they published by, the then Archbishop George Pell. I can’t remember much about it as it was about 18 years ago, but I did question his authority on the topic as the Catholic Church is not one of the most democratic institutions in the world
A week or so late I got anonymous hate mail from a Tasmanian, who advised that I would be going straight to hell, via Pell, not via the $200. There was other, more nasty stuff, no offensive words just threats and denigration.
It seems that in taking issue with George I was challenging their faith and deeply upsetting them.
Sadly I lost the letter in a home office cleanup. I looked everywhere for it as I was intending to frame it. A badge of honor, so to speak. But alas it was gone. On second thoughts, maybe it would have been more of a certificate of honor than a badge
I wasn’t taking issue with Georges religious beliefs, I was a bit taken aback by him suddenly banging on about democracy. But some peoples’ faith cannot be very solid if they take umbrage at every little criticism they get. Perhaps they were confusing George with God. An easy thing to do.
I think that the provision in the act; 471.12 is something that is useful to have, but one which should be prosecuted with a degree of care and diligence that our current law enforcement seems to be lacking at the moment whenever freedom of speech seems to be at issue.
The provision certainly should not be used simply to stop opinions, however unreasonable from being aired. As such the word offensive is going too far. What’s offensive to me may not be offensive to you and if the offensive material is not directed as a threat, harassment, intimidation or the menacing of the recipient then where is the mischief? The words menacing and harassing certainly hit the mark as both of these imply that the material is directed at the recipient to cause harm either real or threatened. But offensive is a step too far.
The hate mail I received. had I chosen to, could have been prosecuted as it was directed to me and threatened me harm, however I did not take it seriously and so let it go. I just wish I hadn’t lost that letter. it was really nice handwriting. Not letters cut out of newspapers like ransom notes.
I look forward to producing stubby holders adorned with Hanson’s ginger stress packed face. On the holder we can write simply…’Nutty as a Fruit Cake.’ Addressed and delivered to all One Nation members. Its my right to do so. This would be a good deal less inflammatory than what has just occurred.