I only ever tell my close friends and family when my birthday is and what my age is. I was therefore shocked, feeling that my privacy was being invaded, when I received a birthday message, including my age, from the local National Party candidate Kris Beavis. When I asked the Nationals where they got this information about me, I was told, ‘from the electoral roll’.
I phoned the electoral office and asked them who has the right to use private information from the electoral roll. They said, ‘only sitting members, and only to be used for campaigns’. The birthday message to me from Beavis was not from a sitting member and since we are not in an electoral campaign period it was definitely not a campaign message.
Who does Kris Beavis think he is to unlawfully access and use my private information, which he has no right to do? More than that I know he is doing this to hundreds of other local people. I know of one 80-year-old person with dementia who was quite distressed at receiving a ‘birthday wish’ from Beavis as it confused him.
It seems the Nationals, not content with betraying the northern rivers by renewing CSG licences, are now also betraying us as individuals by invading our privacy for political purposes
I would say to them, look after our farmlands, care for our water and air and get rid of CSG. Why not do something useful, instead of poking your noses into people’s private business?
Robyn Sparks, Ballina
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
