A handy guide to complaining about stuff

RyaN says:

10:25am | 22/09/11

@acotrel: like most Labor politicians she doesn’t answer, you are lucky if she even bothers to read it.
Hell the vast majority of voters don’t want her carbon tax and yet she is going ahead with it, send her an email, you are hilarious you know that!

Craig of North Brisbane says:

01:51pm | 22/09/11

Hi RyaN, let me fix that for you:

“like most politicians she doesn’t answer”

I once conducted a little experiment emailing all of my elected representatives, not asking for anything other than a reply to let me know that they’d read my email.  None of the LNP ones bothered to reply.  Actually, the only one that DID reply was an ALP member who is now in the clink for taking bribes.  Go figure.

RyaN says:

02:21pm | 22/09/11

@Craig of North Brisbane: nope, not my experience, I wrote to elected members expressing my concern over the carbon tax, most of the LNP politicians replied, none including Gillard bothered reply, if even to disagree yet acknowledge my concern.
Then again we see how little they care for public opinion anyway, unsurprising considering its filled to the brim now with socialists and commies.

MattyC says:

02:52pm | 22/09/11

Wrote an letter to John Howard highlighting my concerns for the increases in HECS whilst he was Prime Minister. He didnt acknowledge. My suspicion is that if they agree they will respond if its a contrary point of view…. sod off

Craig of North Brisbane says:

03:02pm | 22/09/11

Ryan, are you sure you didn’t just get a form letter?  I’ve gotten those before, but they don’t count.  I want something that my MP actually had to put a couple of seconds of thought into, not something that one of their staffers pulled from a big pile of letters pre-prepared by party HQ.

Then again, it was hardly a scientific poll but 0/9 (I emailed all senators too) is hardly a great score for the LNP (not that 1/7 is too flash for the ALP either).

hot tub political machine says:

03:16pm | 22/09/11

When working for a state MP I can assure you that he did read all the correspondence (email and letters) he got from constituents. He didn’t always reply, but he did read everything. Not sure about the Feds, I suspect federal ministers probably have a staff member who reads them and gives them a summary – backbenchers may still actually read them all.

Kipling says:

03:26pm | 22/09/11

I recently wrote to a number of politicians about the Live Export exploitation…

Of the replies one was a (now retired) Liberal party member and the other two were Labor members ALL were automated.

I then followed up and had some brief correspondence with the Lib and one Labor person. The Liberal tried to dismiss it as an extremely complex issue, which I shot down in big bright flames. Both offered follow up… None as yet has arrived and of course the matter has now moved on.

As to my own local member, well Mr Thompson has probably had far more urgent matters to worry about… My read receipt indicated the email was deleted without reading. This was the case with a few of my emails.

I forwarded the read receipts to the PMs office for comment.

Still waiting…It’s ok though I have not been holding my breath.

RyaN says:

04:25pm | 22/09/11

@Kipling: wow, that truly is a sad indictment on the current state of politics, your local MP just deleted your email without reading it, that is just outrageous.
Perhaps it would have been better if you changed the subject line to “free credit card for hookers inside”

Mike says:

05:01pm | 22/09/11

RyaN,  I wrote repeatedly to John Howard & my then Liberal MP about the basic unfairness of Work Choices and got nothing in reply. I love how you Labor-haters always have such short memories and attribute solely to Labor everything that the Liberals were also guilty of when they were in power.

JustAnotherCog says:

05:14pm | 22/09/11

@acotrel - YES it is worth the email!
A little education for the rest of you….

I worked for a Federal MP & senior cabinet minister. No, they don’t read every email & letter. For some this would be upwards of 100 every single day & actually impossible given all the demands on their time. But saying that they don’t get responded to is absolutely untrue.

As someone who has sat there and read those emails & letters I can tell you that there are a whole range of considerations that go into the determination of responses. For the MP I worked for, if you ask a question, it belongs to the portfolio of the person you have written to, and you haven’t written & been responded to before on the same topic, you will get a response. Of these a proportion are read and signed by the MP - to their constituents, key organisations and stakeholders, and other MPs (who may be representing you).

The ‘form’ letter responses that people have been referring to do count. No responses are not automated. A real human being public servant is sitting there drafting them, albeit with the aid of ‘standard’ words, and I would estimate a minimum of five public servants are involved in the allocation, consideration and clearance of each response.

MPs and the public service have to be accountable to the public. But they don’t have to agree with you. I agree that our system is not perfect & nor are our politicians. However we CAN write a letter or pick up the phone and actually talk to someone in Parliament House who is sitting in an MPs office & has direct access to that MP and other support systems and processes. At least someone is listening.

Chris L says:

06:26pm | 22/09/11

I don’t know about those form responses counting JAC. I get that they can’t respond to everything and a lot of the mail is probably not very constructive.

I wrote to Conroy to point out my opposition to the ISP filter, and I think I was fairly articulate and accurate. The form response didn’t cover any of my points and simply regurgitated the original selling points, which I had already countered in my original mail.

I do agree, though, that it is worth the effort when one feels strongly about an issue.

Col Sanders says:

07:17am | 23/09/11

I am astounded @acotrel that you believe you are such a big noise that The prime Minister should drop running the country, engagements, everything, just to answer your ravings. Have you the slightest conception of how many e-mails/letters come from complaining,  I vote I have a right to your time constituents and Nutters. Plus if you analyse most of the posts on (say) climate change that seem to motivate people to ( I will write to that Gillard person) anger;  they are based on Do-Do, Urban Myth or the ravings of a bug eyed goldfish.  Maybe try contacting your local member, that is what he is there for.

engineer says:

08:40am | 23/09/11

I happen to live in an area with liberal council, state and federal members. I have communicated with all levels at different times about issues I was concerned about, both in support of and disagreement with their party policies. I’ve always recieved responses usually personal from either the member or their staff. This has occurred in person, email and posted letter.

I do take the trouble to write rational essays and not just rant and abuse people, but it’s also likely my neighbours bail our representatives up less often than others. We are a pretty comfortable well educated middle class demographic.

Just another data point for you.

marley says:

08:51am | 23/09/11

I once had the misfortune to have to deal with correspondence complaining about a particular government initiative (not in this country,but I’m sure the experience would apply here as well).  We got several hundred e-mails on the subject - and although they all came from different people, the first hundred or so were identical, word for word, and the rest were shortened versions containing selected paragraphs from the first batch. 

Any organization which thinks it can do a mass, template-based mailing and expect individual, tailored responses from busy MPs and civil servants is dreaming. And anyone who thinks that said MPs and civil servants are going to be impressed by letters from people who don’t care enough about the issue to sit down and write their own letters instead of just flipping a template, is also dreaming.

RyaN says:

10:23am | 23/09/11

@Mike: Well I will say that you should at least have received some sort of correspondence and if as you say this is your experience then I think that is shameful.
Note to all politicians, if someone bothers to write to you, have the common decency to even acknowledge receipt of said correspondence.

acotrel says:

07:25am | 22/09/11

I heard a worse joke about the recall of Mercedes Benz cars after Diana died.  It’s not worth repeating !

VVS says:

07:41am | 22/09/11

You mean it wasn’t…?

Isn’t that how Vanilla Ice died as well? And the lead singer from Bros?

acotrel says:

08:23am | 22/09/11

I didn’t give the punch line ! If you know it you will understand why.

Frank says:

12:19pm | 22/09/11

Vanilla Ice isnt dead unless u consider having a show on MTV the afterlife

VVS says:

04:02pm | 22/09/11

Neither is the lead singer of Bros - he is a pretty successful B movie actor these days (Blade 2, Hellboy 2, Death Race 2… am I seeing a pattern here…?)

And I love seeing “Ice” flipping houses! If only he rapped all the voice over it would be TV gold…

Jo Thornely says:

09:13am | 22/09/11

It’s pretty much a dream come true.

Jeremy says:

11:49am | 22/09/11

@ Slim
Complaining is a persistent negative perception of, or reaction to, a situation.
Every time anyone writes a piece themed against complaining someone chimes in with your nonsensical comment.
Your comment sucks.

Zeta says:

12:16pm | 22/09/11

Jo Thornely already has a job writing eye fodder for a newspaper, she’s either slumming it here with us or else it augurs an impending News pay wall.

Plus everyone knows when News journos get a shitty job they just get drunk. If they actually complained John Hartigan would shove them into the meat compactor that supplies the constant stream of bloody, gravy flavoured gristle they need to feed Piers Akermann.

Which is not the worst thing that can befall an online copy monkey. The inside of News Ltd on Holt Street resembles a Bosch landscape. Wild Chiefs of Staff poach cadets with hooks and force them to fight in gladiatorial arenas for the entertainment of the back bench, who bellow ‘MORE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!’ while they sup from cups made of baby’s skulls.

In comparison, I’ve always imagined Tory’s Punch office is like some bizarre Norwegian socialist experiment, where everyone gets free health care, and Jason Tin flies in occassionally to give you a head massage.

I don’t even know where I was going with this. You comment sucked.

marley says:

08:45am | 22/09/11

I think there are two reasons why people never follow through: first, because they’re not necessarily wanted in the countries that they would deign to move to; and second, because on closer examination, the pollies overseas are not any better than the ones here.

acotrel says:

08:56am | 22/09/11

@JW
I’ve been thinking about my options if Tarzan’s offsider gets into the lodge.  Canada might be alright ?

Tina says:

09:14am | 22/09/11

I did follow through and came here, because believe it or not - its worse in Europe.

Reddragon says:

09:31am | 22/09/11

@acotrel.
1. Canada? Nah, the weather would do you in. Spent winter there recently - it was the longest eight months of my life.

2. Don’t know about emails to Julia but having worked at state level for a premier and had to deal with the incoming and there was quite a lot of it. Not much coherent thought on display mostly just spleen venting rather like mornings on 2GB.

marley says:

09:32am | 22/09/11

@acotrel - Canada has a Conservative government. Google Stephen Harper. You might not like what you see.

milo of Brizvegas says:

09:13am | 23/09/11

Many complainers now get a forum and although they may be basically uneducated, misled or uninformed on a subject and make ridiculous, inaccurate or often just plain wrong comments they always seem to get published unlike any rebuttal. Political complainers often are confused between Federal and State, who taxes what and who is responsible for what; whilst others will launch into personal vexatious attacks on a Minister for something like a faulty computer system, that has zero effect on them and nothing to do with the Minister personally and was implemented long before he became the Minister.

Tina says:

09:25am | 22/09/11

Hey MarkS

In Germany we have something called eco-tax. We have over 60 % taxation on petrol (made up of different taxes). But they dont use the tax for environmental issues.

Erick says:

04:04pm | 22/09/11

I like to reply to people who say they’re ashamed of being Australian with “I agree. I’m also ashamed that you’re Australian”.

Audra Blue says:

09:56pm | 22/09/11

I’ve never been ashamed to be anything let alone Australian.  All my utter horribleness is constantly on display for all to see….mwahahahahahaha

fairsfair says:

02:51pm | 22/09/11

what a hoot

Tim says:

01:03pm | 22/09/11

Well I’m sure the “Left” will be on this discrimination like a flash then.
If Timothya wants to have children with his own family members then he should be able to.
Who are the right to deny Timothya his familial love?

RyaN says:

01:27pm | 22/09/11

@Tim: yes I can’t wait for the campaigning from the left for same family marriage, why should they be discriminated against.
Next they will be campaigning for timothya’s right to marry his dog.

timothya says:

02:18pm | 22/09/11

i guess you guys will just keep on keeping on with your sisters then.
but i wouldn’t expect anything less from people who have a bloke as leader who supports the number one kiddie fiddler organisation.