Senator LUNDY (6:13 PM) —by leave—I move opposition amendments (2) and (3) on sheet 3162:

These amendments are designed to ensure that electronic messages classed as designated commercial electronic messages—which, as proposed by this legislation, are therefore exempt—are required to have a functional unsubscribe facility. Whilst we have not dealt with the exemption amendments that are proposed, I think this principle is an extremely important one.

These amendments are designed to ensure that Australians can voluntarily opt out of commercial email lists and are presented with a very simple mechanism for doing so. Amendments (2) and (3), which amend clause 18 of the Spam Bill, remove the provision that exempts designated commercial emails—that is, those that will be exempted under this legislation—from the requirement of including an unsubscribe facility with an electronic message. We are saying that we want to make sure that even organisations which are exempted under this legislation—and we will talk about those shortly—also abide by good practice and have an unsubscribe facility.

Senator Greig raised this issue before when he expressed concern about the growing number of emails from political or religious organisations. I know in his speech in the second reading debate he expressed concern about the use of unsolicited emails by the religious right, I think it was. Whether we are talking about an exempted organisation or non-commercial emails it is always good practice to have an unsubscribe or opt-out facility so people can say to senders of emails, `I do not want any more email from you.'

Our amendments here are designed to ensure that even exempted organisations—and Labor will be arguing later for an increase in or an expansion of the definition of organisations deemed exempt under this legislation—honour good practice, good Internet etiquette, if you like, and provide that unsubscribe facility so that recipients of emails from those exempted organisations can still say: `Don't give it to me anymore. I don't want to receive anything from you anymore.' I think that is sound, good practice. Whilst a clear case for exemptions exists, it is also absolutely fair and appropriate, good practice and commonsense, to ensure that all of those organisations have a functional and effective unsubscribe facility so that people can say no and thereby not receive any more of those emails if they are in fact not wanted.