House debates

Monday, 16 November 2009

Statements by Members

Do Not Call Register

6:49 pm

Photo of Dennis JensenDennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The former coalition government introduced the Do Not Call Register to protect Australians from overzealous telemarketers and businesses. It was initially very successful and well received, but a constituent of mine in Tangney has been having serious problems. He was getting persistent calls from Centurion Roof Coatings, despite his request that they desist. He then put his number on the Do Not Call Register, but the calls continued. In April 2008, my constituent lodged his first complaint with the telemarketing division of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA. He received a prompt reply saying that ACMA was monitoring Centurion. Despite this, by December 2008 he had received seven more calls from Centurion. On 24 December 2008, he received the most recent letter from ACMA, basically saying the same thing as the letter eight months previously. Since then he has heard nothing more from ACMA—and, in the West Australian on 17 October 2009, Centurion were again advertising for telemarketers. It is disgraceful that there appears to have been no action taken on this. I have written to the minister to investigate this lack of action immediately and to provide me with an explanation. This is intolerable and flies in the face of the whole purpose of the Do Not Call Register.