A former Casey councillor has criticised a “lack of attention to detail” after receiving a mistaken email from Liberal MP Wendy Lovell, congratulating him on becoming an Australian citizen.
The mix-up follows an “administrative error” from Liberal Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell’s office, which accidentally sent the message to many Victorians on Wednesday 8 October.
Former Casey councillor Steve Beardon received the email and immediately realised that it was an oversight.
The email congratulated Mr Beardon on recently becoming an Australian Citizen at the Indigo Shire Council.
Mr Beardon replied to Ms Lovell that he was born an Australian citizen.
He received an apology email on the same night.
“I want to sincerely apologise if you incorrectly received an email from me congratulating you on becoming a new citizen,” Ms Lovell said in her email.
“I was sending my congratulations to a small list of new citizens in my electorate of Northern Victoria Region.”
Mr Beardon said he never lived in the Indigo Shire.
“I did actually speak to or email probably Wendy about the road conditions when I travelled through there,” he recalled.
“That’s how she must have had me on her email list. She never replied to that. However, they must have a database, and everybody on their database emailed about citizenship.
“Obviously, they’ve contacted everybody on that database now to congratulate them, whether they were the newest new citizens or not.”
Mr Beardon said he felt very embarrassed for Ms Lovell.
Ms Lovell said her office is using a new communication package, and unfortunately, there was an administrative error that resulted in the letter going to a much larger group of recipients than the few it was intended for.
“I assure people there has not been a data breach and all personal information is safe,” she said.
