Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to table the explanatory memorandum relating to the bill.

Leave granted.

I table the explanatory memorandum and seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This bill deals with unwanted calls and texts from political parties and candidates. It also deals with dishonesty in robocalls.

The bill will permit recipients of unwanted political communication to opt out, by requiring senders of political texts and emails to include an 'unsubscribe' facility.

Change is overdue. Australians have been abundantly clear about this; they do not want to be annoyed by unwanted spam from politicians.

Most Australians find unsolicited text messages highly intrusive. A recent petition on change.org to ban political spam garnered over 18,500 signatures in mid-October.

The bill amends the Spam Act 2003 to require that any electronic electoral message designed to influence voters must include an unsubscribe facility.

The Spam Act only requires commercial electronic messages (that is, those that offer, advertise or promote goods or services) to comply with obligations to seek permission beforehand and to include a functional unsubscribe facility in each message. Political parties are currently exempt from these rules.

This bill changes this and gives control back to the voter.

This bill also seeks to ensure more honest telephone campaigning during elections. It amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to require actors performing in electoral voice calls to be identified as actors at the outset.

The amendments in this bill are nearly identical to those in the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Unsolicited Communications) Bill I introduced in 2019, except it removes the provisions relating to charities. The 2019 bill sought to allow consumers on the Do Not Call Register to opt out of receiving any telemarketing call made on behalf of a registered charity. This bill does not include those provisions, in part because of the sector's efforts since then to address problems of fundraising harassment, making this issue less acute. Meanwhile, the issue of unsolicited political texts is ongoing and unresolved.

The amendments in this bill seek to strike a balance between the rights of consumers and the implied freedom of political communication protected by the Constitution.

This bill focuses on choice and transparency. It respects the recipients of political messages. The provisions are simple, supportable and will give power back to the irritated people.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.