On Blogging Australia

I’ve been having a comment conversation with Margaret Lomas on my Always include the batteries post. I was unhappy with some advice given in her book to read some of her other books first - hidden in the text such that there was little chance to find it prior to purchasing the book. Margaret says that she was advised to do this by her publisher. I have no reason to suppose that she was (and is) anything other than honest. She’s won a reader back - I’m going to finish reading her book (and the referred ones) and suspect that my apology to her will be a profuse one. My impression is that she is passionate about giving people the information they need to avoid the traps in the property investment game.

Today she suggested (referring to people who give misleading property investment advice):

It would be great to see your forum perhaps looking out for some of these ‘less than honest’ people and pissibly even encouraging others to write if they have had experiences with them. The only way to eventually stamp them out completely is to continue to expose them.

This is interesting - the thought of contributing to the exposure of people who may have ripped off ordinary Australians for hundreds of thousands of dollars appeals to me. I like the idea of joining this particular crusade.

My reply to Margaret today:

You are right that more needs to be done to expose the cheats and liars - as well as the plain incompetents - within the property investment advice industry. Is there a way for an Australian blogger such as myself to do so without getting sued into abject bankruptcy? If there is, I’m willing to give it a go, and I think that I could persuade others to join me.

So my question to you is this: is this a good idea? I’m not working for a big news organisation that will pay legal fees for me - so if I blast a shonky bastard and they sue, I’m sunk. At the same time, the right thing to do is not always the easy thing - and I believe that there is a wider social responsibility for bloggers to call a shonk a shonk.

My initial thoughts are:

• I could do it anonymously, using some of the same tactics used by spammers to avoid legal entanglements, but this is fairly shonky in and of itself.
• I could do it by setting up a consumer watchdog nonprofit - bit of a hassle, and not a sustainable thing without seeking sponsorship (hmmm, potential there for some good intentions to go awry in the presence of cash).
• I could move offshore (not very convenient).

What do you think? Is there a place for one more consumer advocate crusader here? Or should I just join the Australian Consumers’ Association and encourage them to pursue investment advisers? Or would the Property Investment Association of Australia be a better vehicle?

PS: Just in case… I’ve registered the ShonkyBastards.com domain name