Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 amends the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and the Telecommunications Act 1997. Under the Bill, the Do Not Call Register will be expanded to enable all Australian numbers to be registered.

While telemarketing and fax marketing are legitimate methods by which businesses can market their services, the Australian Government is concerned that the rate of unsolicited marketing faxes has grown in recent years. As a result, there have been rising community concerns about the inconvenience and intrusiveness of telemarketing and fax marketing on Australians. In response to these concerns, this Bill will extend the Register to enable all persons, including individuals, businesses, government and organisations to express their preference not to receive telemarketing calls or marketing faxes.

The Do Not Call Register Act (the Act) was introduced in 2006 in response to community concerns about unsolicited and unwanted telemarketing calls.

In May 2007, when the Act came into effect, an impressive one million Australians listed their private fixed line, mobile, VOIP or satellite numbers on the Do Not Call Register. To date, 3.8 million people have registered their details on the Register. This means that approximately one in three Australian households have ‘opted out’ of receiving telemarketing calls.

The success of the Register is demonstrated by the declining level of complaints regarding potential breaches of the Act. From May 2008 to May 2009 the ACMA received 12 057 complaints which represented a 60 per cent drop from the May 2007 to May 2008 figure of 30 060 complaints.

However, there have been many concerns raised about the restrictions on the types of numbers that can be listed on the Register. Under the existing provisions, business numbers, emergency service numbers and fax numbers are ineligible for inclusion on the Register. As a consequence, businesses, particularly small businesses, have raised concerns about the losses in productivity caused by responding to unsolicited telemarketing calls.

The receipt of telemarketing calls by emergency service organisations has also been an issue of concern as these calls may potentially impact on emergency service responses. Emergency service operators have advised the Government that responding to telemarketing calls can delay the answering of genuine emergency calls. Telemarketers are bypassing emergency numbers, such as ‘000’, and directly contacting emergency service operators (such as the fire brigade) through the use of predictive dialling equipment. These calls divert emergency resources while the telemarketing calls are being answered.

There have also been concerns raised by fax owners that the Register does not allow them to opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial faxes. Much of the ‘cost’ of a marketing fax is transferred to the recipient in lost time, productivity and the tying-up of telecommunications equipment, as well as the additional cost of consumables such as ink and paper.

In August 2008, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy issued a discussion paper that raised these issues. A large majority of respondents (86 per cent) supported allowing the registration of all Australian telephone and fax numbers, including business and emergency numbers.

In response to these concerns and submissions to the discussion paper the Government announced in the 2009-10 Budget that the Register will be extended to allow the registration of all Australian telephone and fax numbers, including those used by businesses and emergency services.

The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 and Telecommunications Act 1997 to give all individuals, businesses, government agencies, emergency service operators and other organisations the choice of whether they wish to receive unsolicited telemarketing calls and marketing faxes.

Outline of amendments

The Bill enables all Australian telephone and fax numbers to be registered on the Do Not Call Register. This will allow organisations as well as individuals to access the protections of the Register.

The Bill will make an allowance for businesses (large and small), and other organisations to list their telephone and fax numbers on the Register. This change is not intended to impinge on business to business communications which are an important part of everyday business activity. Businesses can still contact other businesses with whom they have a relationship under the current inferred consent provisions. Businesses that have given express consent to receive calls or faxes may also continue to be contacted. However, ‘cold calls’ and marketing faxes to businesses that do not fall under the express or inferred consent provisions in the Act will be prohibited for numbers that are listed on the Do Not Call Register.

There have been concerns that extending the Register to business numbers will limit competition and stifle innovation. To address these concerns, the Bill contains an additional consent mechanism that allows businesses to list their number on the Register and continue to receive telemarketing calls or marketing faxes relating to specific industry classifications. As a part of the registration process, new registrants will be provided with the option to nominate to receive calls or faxes relating to a list of industry classifications. These options will not apply to those already registered on the Do Not Call Register.

In addition, for new registrants operating under the revised Do Not Call Register, the default position will continue to be that registrants are opting out of all telemarketing calls and marketing faxes. A registrant will need to take positive action to opt-in to receive certain types of telemarketing calls and marketing faxes. Registrants will be able to change their options at any time if they later choose to opt-out of these calls/faxes.

It is anticipated that this ‘nomination’ option will be available to anyone who lists a number on the Register after it comes into effect, in the second half of 2010. It allows marketers to continue contacting individuals or businesses that have expressed an interest in hearing about the products or services in their industry classification. The nomination process also extends the choice available to consumers currently listed on the Register, as it allows them to tailor their registration.

Provisions in the Bill prohibit marketing faxes from being sent to a number on the Do Not Call Register. The Bill also provides the Australian Communications and Media Authority with the power to make a fax marketing industry standard to place restrictions on the sending of marketing faxes, such as specifying certain times of day when faxes can be sent. This will provide additional consumer protections and will assist business recipients to more efficiently manage their communications.

Expected benefits

The amendments in this Bill will benefit those organisations that currently experience losses in productivity or other expenses by prohibiting unsolicited marketing calls or faxes. This will be of particular benefit to small businesses and emergency service organisations.

This change may also assist the telemarketing and fax marketing industries in targeting their campaigns to those recipients who are more likely to respond positively to their representations. Consultation with key stakeholders indicated a preference for the proposed new consent provision, which enables registrants to nominate a limited range of industry sectors about which they would wish to continue to receive telemarketing calls and marketing faxes. For small businesses in particular, this model will only allow relevant and targeted marketing faxes or calls. It will prevent the interruptions caused by unsolicited or unwanted telemarketing calls or faxes in businesses that cannot afford to waste time dealing with them.

Extending the nomination model to all registrants on the Register – including businesses and consumers – gives them the ability to receive calls they would like to receive, and reject those that they do not want. This is an improvement on the current Register that operates as an ‘all or nothing’ scheme.

Compliance Costs

There are expected to be some compliance costs for business to business telemarketers and fax marketers who have not previously been required to use the Register. However, these compliance costs are expected to be in line with the costs that telemarketers incurred with the introduction of the original Do Not Call Register and are not expected to be large. For example, the current cost to check 20 000 numbers against the Register is $78 per year. A 2008 independent study conducted by the call centre industry found that 90 per cent of call centres surveyed experienced no change in gross revenues following the introduction of the original Register, and none experienced decreased gross revenues.

Funding

The Government will provide funding of $4.7 million over four years to make the necessary changes to the scheme. Of this amount, approximately $3.5 million over four years will be recovered from the telemarketing and fax marketing industries through fees paid to access the Register to cover its operational costs. This is consistent with the Government’s election commitment that industry will bear the full direct costs of the Register. The remaining $1.2 million will come from a re-allocation of resources within the broadband, communications and the digital economy portfolio.

Conclusion

This Bill will put in place a range of measures that will provide all Australians with equal access to the Do Not Call Register. Businesses have long demanded inclusion on the Do Not Call Register and this Bill will allow them to join the 3.8 million Australian households already receiving protection from unsolicited and unwanted telemarketing calls.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition will support the Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 and, for the very detailed rationale, I refer senators and members of the public to the comments made by my friend and colleague the Hon. Tony Smith in the other place. However, I quickly make the observation that the way in which this legislation has been handled is yet another example, another case study of a government which does not know how to manage its legislative program, which does not know how to manage the affairs of government, which does not think things through and has to fix up things at the last minute. Here we are, at the last possible opportunity to get this legislation through in time, for its coming into effect by 31 May, and we have other senators who want to talk to it.

The Do Not Call Register is a great and very successful Howard government initiative, which has seen more than four million residential phone numbers registered. It protects those Australians from unwanted calls from telemarketers. The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, with great fanfare, announced that he wanted to extend this register to business, government, faxes and emergency numbers. Right from the outset, we said that extending this to business would not be workable. According to the typical Rudd government’s modus operandi, late on Friday afternoon, on 30 April, the minister had to perform yet another backflip. He was trying to do it on the quiet when nobody was watching. We are now here mopping up the minister’s stuff-ups and we are given 30 seconds to deal with this piece of legislation just so as not to embarrass the minister by it adversely impacting on millions of Australians who want to continue to benefit from the protection of this particular piece of legislation.

The coalition does support the extension to five years, as has been put forward by the government. We think it should have happened through legislation rather than through regulation. However, to facilitate speedy passage of this legislation I will conclude my remarks on that point.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens support the Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill 2009. We actually put this to the government in the last sitting of parliament. We believe that the Senate should not have been given four minutes to debate the bill but, in the interests of moving it forward, I commend this legislation to the house. I also congratulate the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy on one of those rare moments where the government has actually changed tack and done something constructive to fix an issue while setting most of the substantive issues aside.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been given perhaps a minute or two to talk about the Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill 2009. I agreed that this legislation could go into a position of ‘noncontroversial’ as long as I could speak on it. I do not know if this is how this chamber wants to work, but I do not think this is the way it should work. I want to speak on this bill; it is important. There are vulnerable Australians who are hassled and taken advantage of by marketing companies. I think it is pretty ordinary that I am given only a couple of minutes. I am asking the chamber to think about what it wants to do after question time and to perhaps allow another 12 minutes to be given to this particular bill, to at least allow me to raise some of those concerns. The Do Not Call Register is important. The last time this bill came before the Senate we argued the case very strongly that it was crazy that, when you put yourself on the register for not wanting unsolicited calls, your name should just drop off the register at the end of three years. This bill now extends the time to five years.

In other countries you are on the register permanently—you do not have to keep putting yourself back on the register. As I said, there are many vulnerable Australians and they do not want to keep putting themselves on the register. People forget when the time comes up. The government may say that they will let people know that they have to reregister, but that is not the way it should be done. It should never be done in that particular way. Everybody hates getting annoying phone calls.

Debate interrupted.