[Computerbank] Linux prize for finding PM's email address

[Bruce McCubbery]

At 02:06 PM 7/02/2003 +1100, Bruce McCubbery wrote:
>http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/21/1042911367264.html
>Right! Ta. I'll add in a slab and spread the word.


Thanks again Ian, I got to it ok and then to the link on 
http://www.labor.net.au/

It's all at http://www.labor.net.au/campaigns/wheresjohn/wheresjohn.html

Where's John?
Can you find John online?
Can you find John online?

In today's world of e-democracy it seems everyone and everything to do with 
government is online and accessible...except John Howard. So LaborNET is 
launching its "Where's John?" campaign to find John Howard's email address 
and bring him out of virtual hiding.

Here at LaborNET we've been running an online campaign to let politicians 
know how much ordinary working people out there oppose war in Iraq. Part of 
this campaign features a protest form that allows people to send messages 
to the email addresses of our political leaders.

On this form you can send a protest message to the President of the United 
States of America, his Vice President and the Leader of the Opposition in 
Australia. But you can't send your message of protest to the person who the 
people voted to lead Australia; John Howard, because John is not taking emails.

PM in Virtual Hiding

John has not been taking emails for quite a long time: he has no publicly 
available email address. Whether it be the Australian Parliament House 
website, John's personal website, his official PM site or the Liberal Party 
site, you won't find an email address for John Howard. Sure you can fill 
out some forms on these sites and hope that they reach the PM but the point 
is that many voters can't or prefer not to visit these sites.

We think this is a pretty poor effort on the part of the PM. Email is a 
legitimate form of communication that millions of Australians use everyday 
and the people we elect have a responsibility to be both accessible and 
accountable across all forms of media.

Every member of Federal Parliament has a publicly available email address 
so that voters can easily access those that they elect. Except John Howard 
and one of his Ministers, Phillip Ruddock. Funny that, the two Ministers 
you'd most like to send protests to don't give out their email addresses.

So essentially, we have a Prime Minister in virtual hiding.
The Challenge: Find John Online

It's a fair bet that John Howard actually has an email address - it's just 
that he's hiding it from the public. So we'd like to offer a challenge to 
anyone out there to track down John's email address.

LaborNET will award any geek who can uncover John Howard's email address a 
case of Coke and $100 worth of Linux merchandise.

So if you think you have found John's email address then just send it to us at:

mailbox at labor.net.au

Regards to all,

Bruce

PS. Anyone got some lamingtons to add to the prize?