Friday 29th of March 2024

email as a communications medium with politicians

I find the medium of email the greatest thing since sliced bread. Others do not!

Political minders aka ministerial staffers I feel are very remiss in their handling of email input. There are programs which give thwe recipient the opportunity to preview incoming email before it is actually downloaded from the ISP, indeed some ISP's provide the preview facility. The minders thus have the chance to preview and delete anything that they consider their Minister would not be interested in. Problem. If I send an intelligent email enquiry to a polly, with name and address supplied and an electronic receipt requested, that is as time consuming as writing a memorandum. It lacks a postage stamp and a signature.

If some bloody minder decides to delete this at the preview stage, I get back a note as there is no electronic receipt, that says 'your message was deleted unread at *****(date time).' What confidence this inspires in the breast of the elector. Treated like a bit of tret. When I was a public servant in the Canberra scene many years before email there was a standard approach to communication. A visit deserved a return visit, a memo deserved a return memo, a phone call for a phone call (with record of conversation), and the same thing should apply to an email!

If I printed out my email, signed it, spent 50c. to get it there by snail mail, it would involve registry staff, internal delivery staff, still a minder or two, probably not a push up to the boss unless it was really serious and intelligent, then I would get a formal reply from someone who would respond at say $60,000pa. man hour rate, typist, stationery, signing after perusal by another authoritarian figure, mail pick up, registery action and in a month or so I would get a wonderful response.

Surely, realising that there are those who use email anonomously to slang and abuse because they haven't the guts to stand and be counted, surely when an elector uses email and provides his personals as evidence of good intent, he deserves better treatment than to be 'deleted as unread' by some bloody minder. I have addressed this problem to the webmaster at APH with nil response. Any suggestions or corroborative comment would be of interest.

Deleted without being read

Hi Max. You know I had the same thing happening to me when I sent emails to the Sydney Morning Herald I got a notice back saying "Deleted without being read". I complained and got a response that just said that my email had been read and forwarded on - it didn't say which email, whether it was the first one or the ones complaining. I heard nothing since.

It is not just the Ministers that do this.

Hi Max

Hi Max, I agree with everything you have said here.

Whenever I email a politician I always give my full name, address and telephone number and format the email as though it was a 'snail mail' letter.

The first time I got a ''your message was deleted unread at *****(date time)' message was when I emailed Nicola Roxon (Fed ALP MP) about gay marriage last year and thought it very rude but perhaps a one-off as she may have been deluged on this issue. However, I have a had a few more of them since to other MPs so someone has obviously memo'd parliamentary staff on how to delete them unread.

I now make sure I cc to my local member. I still get emails deleted at the top level but at least my MP acknowledges them (that's usually all I get though).

Once upon a time all emails were treated as letters and I got proper responses. Perhaps they are now so full of their own importance with the senate majority the pollies think they can afford to ignore us.

I am not a person who emails pollies on a daily basis so I shouldn't be in some kind of 'slush' list.

Email or letter?

Hi Max and Katoomba, I can't disagree with either of you about email or the written letter. Indeed Max is spot on about Ministers never actually seeing the original letter or even considering the issue raised until the reponse is ready to go. I've been involved at that level and the disinterest is palpable except if it involves a family member, or a wealthy/powerful citizen.

The deletion of email is exactly what I do using Mailwasher. It protects me against spam and other unwanted email but I have that right as a private person. Pollies are public servants as are their staff, by association at least, and they are required to respond to any contact, even if it is anonymous. I do use my real info when contacting pollies in the past but having attracted only ignorance and abuse I can see why many use anonymous data.

It really is low for office staff to delete email simply because they don't want the task of responding or because you may have upset them previously. I've experienced both and gave up on contacting pollies altogether as I couldn't see the point as an individual. As a group here, we have a method of forcing a response but I don't think that would be helpful if all of us sent the same email etc as they would see it as spam (maybe).

I think one letter from a group rep, who could vary to give Hamish a break (also a hand with postage costs I would think), would be more effective, particularly if we include links to discussions on this site and others.

Katoomba, I followed your link to Mountain Murmurs and I am browsing after I finish this. Whose site is this please?

www.mountainmurmurs.com

Mountain Murmurs is my blog, Pegasus.