Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, it has been around for a while. This is a good thing. We do, in fact, agree on most things in this place. It is only the things that we do not agree on that get the newspaper and media coverage. It is a good proposal that Senator Coonan has brought forward, and it is very important that, in one of the greatest democracies in the world, we are able to communicate with our constituents using all forms of technology. It is incredibly important to have that level of availability. The reality is: if politicians abuse that direct communication by making phone calls that become harassing and a nuisance, then there is a consequence and that is that people do not vote for us.

I know that the calls that our party made at the last election were controversial, but the risk that you take when you use a new technique like that is that you get a backlash. That is always a risk, and I think it is quite self-enforcing. If you ring up as a politician and lobby someone, and you have upset their dinner, or you have upset their evening, or you have upset them because you have called them in the first place, then the risk is that you lose their vote. I think it is self-enforcing, and there is a substantial difference between phone calling for commercial activities and phone calling for the public interest, which is the context in which I put political phone calling—as well as phone calling by charity groups that seek to raise money for good causes. We will be opposing this amendment.