Senator LUNDY (3:26 PM) —Isn't it interesting that some members of the coalition seem to have excellent memories that can drag up all sorts of tripe from the past, but today we saw in the chamber two frontbenchers showing their complete ignorance and lack of understanding of a very current issue, and that is the one I would like to address my comments to today. It relates to privacy and to the issue of how the privacy of consumers and citizens is protected in the information age. We have seen today reported in the newspaper and through various reports since that privacy is something that is not at the forefront of this government's agenda.

It is quite extraordinary that, despite having made two election promises—one in 1996 and another in 1998—that this government would legislate to protect the privacy of individual information held in the commercial sector or the private sector, we are yet to see that legislation tabled in this place. What we do know—and this is an even graver indictment on the frontbenchers in this place today—is that the government has circulated a discussion paper at some length. Indeed, it was in 1998, late last year, that they circulated the national principles for the fair handling of personal information. But nearly 12 months later there is no legislation to be seen.

Despite obviously having a very clear position on this issue from the point of view of a discussion paper from the Attorney-General's Department, this government has failed to act and it has failed to legislate, exposing consumers and citizens to potentially very serious breaches of privacy. I am, of course, referring to the reportage today of an alliance between PBL and Acxiom. It is a very interesting alliance given that the new chief executive of this particular company happens to be none other than the former federal director of the Australian Liberal Party. I will come back to that point.

Let us have a look at what is being proposed here. What this company is saying is that they will store the information of 15 million Australians and they will gather it from a range of different sources. They nominate the areas. They will gather it from the electoral roll and they will gather it from credit card companies. They will gather it from a range of sources that demonstrate, for the first time that I can recall, the absolute significance of some of the corporate alliancing that is occurring in the information technology sector, the telecommunications sector, the media sector and so forth.

For the first time we have seen what I see as a confession by the CEO of this particular company as to just what depth they intend to use and manipulate personal information about citizens in this country. I will refer to Acxiom's own homepage now to show the sorts of ways they hope to use the personal information that it is suggested PBL in partnership with Acxiom will be collecting about Australian citizens:

The Acxiom Data Network, with all of its power, is only in its infancy. There are many innovations still on the way, such as the ability to integrate data directly into call centers, interactive web pages, point-of-sale applications and sales force automation software. Additionally, "push notification" will be available later this year. This technology will automatically alert subscribers when customer data has changed, keeping their data as current as possible. Subscribers will soon have the ability to build their own prospect lists directly from our InfoBase files.

If that does not make you nervous, it should.

Just about every other jurisdiction in the western world has managed to find a way to legislate quite specifically to put in place sanctions against the breach of personal information. Australia has not. My concern is that, whilst ever this government is negligent in this regard and fails to legislate for the protection of personal data held in private hands, Australian consumers and citizens will become vulnerable to a depth of manipulation that they have not given permission for and that they are not aware is actually occurring.

I believe this matter warrants the most serious consideration by the government, right now. Senator Faulkner raised in this place this afternoon the issue of the use of electoral rolls as a potential breach of section 91B(3) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. That needs to be immediately inquired into by the government to find out if that constitutes a breach of that act, and Acxiom and PBL need to be called to task. (Time expired)