Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

In October 2005, I introduced a private member’s bill into this House calling on the government to introduce a Do Not Call Register to protect consumers from unwanted and unsolicited telemarketing calls. The then Howard government advised that this bill was outrageous and that it could not support the bill and claimed that it would not work. Indeed, the arguments that the member for Bradfield has just raised for extending the list are the very arguments that the government of the day put up for why we could not have a Do Not Call Register at all. To come into this place claiming credibility for the legislation is a little stretched. Yes, the Howard government did introduce the bill, but only after outrageous consumer demand—only after talk-back radio ran with this issue for three years. Eventually, Senator Helen Coonan, as the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, said, ‘Yes, we have heard the public; we are going to do something about it.’ So I want to say thankyou to the consumers out there, the people of Australia who said, ‘We want something.’

Registers were already operating successfully in the US and UK and I for one could not understand why we could not duplicate that here. The technology existed. It was an easy transition. After overwhelming public support for my campaign, the campaign on behalf of the Labor Party policy, the Howard government finally bowed and decided to adopt a policy to establish a Do Not Call Register, pretty much modelled on my private member’s bill.

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