Anti-telemarketing bill faces Senate scrutiny

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 December 2009 09:50

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The bill is scheduled to come into effect in the second half of 2010, six months after it receives royal assent. Albanese said the six month delay would give the telemarketing industry time to make the necessary adjustments.

Introduction of the legislation was foreshadowed in the 2009 Federal Budget, which allocated $4.7m over four years to the costs of implementing expanded coverage of the do-not-call register. Announcing the move, communications minister Stephen Conroy said: "Community consultation indicated that these telephone and fax users want protection from unsolicited commercial telemarketing and fax marketing representations.

"I have also received a number of requests directly from the public on this matter. It was particularly concerning to me that these unwanted calls and faxes are wasting business resources and adversely affecting the operation of emergency services."

He said that, of the $4.7m "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 the direct operational costs of the expanded Register."

The current DNC legislation came into effect on 1 May 2007 and by July 2009 over 3.5 million numbers had been registered. An Australian Institute survey in December 2008 found that two-thirds of respondents wanted to see telemarketing banned completely and it calculated the cost in wasted time at $1.58b per year.

The ACMA said in July 2009   that, in the 12 months to May 2009, there has been a 60 percent drop in complaints about calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Register, indicating a significant improvement in compliance by telemarketers.