This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The company behind the “retiree tax” campaign that targeted Labor’s franking credits policy has been forced to delete the private data of people it signed up on the petition website.

In the months leading up to the 2019 federal election, a Stop the Retirement Tax website was set up to collect signatures and submissions aimed at pressuring Labor into dropping the policy of reforming the dividend imputation system and removing refundable franking credits.

In February, the fund manager Geoff Wilson admitted to part-funding the website with the Liberal MP Tim Wilson. Wilson Asset Management ran the petition on the website, collecting the personal information of those who had signed up.

Tim Wilson was chair of the House of Representatives committee investigating the opposition policy.

‘Potential for interference’ in franking credits inquiry, but Tim Wilson avoids sanction Read more

As first reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, the company has now been forced to destroy the data it collected as part of that process, following an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner.

The commissioner found that between October 2018 and January 2019, the company accessed the database seven times and then used the names and email addresses of those who signed the petition to contact those people by email.

The commissioner found that the collection of personal information by Wilson Management was not reasonably necessary, and the company did not take reasonable steps to notify people who signed the petition that their information would be collected in such a manner.

In an enforceable undertaking published on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner website, the company’s chief financial officer, Jesse Hamilton, said the company had agreed to not collect more information from the website, and destroy the information it had collected.

Hamilton said Wilson Management stopped having access to the website on 22 February 2019.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald report, the privacy commissioner also sought legal advice about investigating Tim Wilson over the data collected, but due to the exemption in the Privacy Act for political representatives it could not be taken further.

The House of Representatives Speaker, Tony Smith, found in February that Wilson’s use of the website to solicit submissions for the inquiry he chaired against Labor’s policy could have the potential for political interference, and “could be seen to have caused damage to the committee’s reputation”, but ultimately Wilson was not found in contempt.

Wilson Management chairman Geoff Wilson didn’t address the privacy concerns outlined in the undertaking in a statement provided to Guardian Australia. Instead, Wilson defended the campaign, stating it was designed to ensure Labor’s policy was debated and scrutinised.



“With a lot of effort and some risk, we believed we achieved that goal,” he said.

“Our focus was always on the inequitable nature of the policy. At times, the debate became very heated and unfortunately we were dragged into the politics of the situation.”