Ms BURKE (9:00 PM) —That was a very short speech by the member for Shortland. I would like to talk tonight about something that is driving all of our constituents nuts, something that is bugging them to death.

Dr Southcott —Their local member?

Ms BURKE —No, it is not their local member. It is something that all our constituents are calling to complain about. What am I talking about? Unwanted phone calls from the $14.7 billion a year telemarketing industry, which have become the biggest source of complaints to the New South Wales Office of Fair Trading and, I dare say, to every other office of fair trading across the states. So it is time that the government acted to create a national do not call list to protect people’s precious time at home from being disturbed by unwanted and invasive calls.

A recent kit I have promoted in my electorate to assist people to opt out of unwanted calls has resulted in an avalanche of requests. In excess of 500 people called for the kit in the first week and, whilst I only advertised locally, I have had calls from across Australia. One woman was so excited about getting her peace back at home she nearly ran off the road, trying to get the details of how to get hold of the kit when she heard me mention it on the radio.

Whilst the kit is a start, it is a limited option. The bizarre thing at the moment is that it is the industry driving the push to establish a do not call register. The Australian Direct Marketing Association has created a do not call register amongst its 500 members. The number of people wanting to be on this list is growing exponentially, with about 400,000 people currently registered and 10,000 being added each month. I can certainly attest that my office and my kit are adding considerably to their workload. The trouble is that the list will not stop all the calls, only those from ADMA members, and ADMA believes that it is not their members who are guilty of abusing telemarketing.

The community is outraged by the intrusive nature of telemarketing. The calls always come at that time when you really could do without them. Without fail it is when you are cooking tea, when you are putting the kids in the bath or in that rare precious moment when you finally have peace and you can stop and enjoy the quiet of your life that, yes, you get that phone call: ‘Good evening, Mrs Burke, would you like to buy?’ I always get slightly suspicious when someone calls me Mrs Burke, and I know that it is obviously one of these people. I, probably like many in this place, have a silent number, and still they get through and annoy you. They are driving us nuts. I certainly know that my constituents, and the constituents from all of your electorates who are ringing, are saying, ‘Enough is enough. Why doesn’t the government act now?’

A lot of people feel that they cannot be rude, like I am when I politely tell people that I am just not interested. A lot of elderly people feel incredibly frightened and feel that their privacy has been invaded. One caller requesting the kit said that they had had 13 calls in one afternoon-evening period. They were driven ballistic by these invasive calls. Many of the calls are now coming from overseas, predominately from India, Ireland and Singapore, and this obviously means that we must have regulation federally. Companies can now also place you on call waiting so that you are queued—you actually answer a queued call and you wait for someone to telemarket you something. I find this incredibly amazing. No longer is your home your castle; it is a telemarketing paradise. Individuals need to be able to say: ‘No, I deserve my privacy and my peace at home. I don’t want you to call.’ In the United States 87 million households, or about 70 per cent of all homes, are now on a do not call register set up by the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. If the States can regulate the telemarketers, why can we not do so here?

The government should act now to restore peace to households. Let people say, ‘I don’t want to be bugged at home.’ The Labor Party has a policy to adopt a do not call register, which could be administered by the ACCC. Labor would reform existing rules to ensure that telemarketers do not call people on public holidays or on Sundays. The federal Privacy Commissioner has called on the government to develop a do not call list. The community is demanding a do not call list, and for once the government should listen and adopt a policy which will significantly improve family time and would be a real barbecue stopper. The government has regulated against spam, so why not against telemarketers? Why not protect people’s complete privacy? I call on the government to adopt Labor’s policy of a do not call register to turn people’s homes back into castles, not shopping centres.