A new bill was introduced to parliament on Wednesday, sparking a debate on whether or not politicians should be allowed to send out unsolicited text messages ahead of the election.
The new legislation, which was proposed to parliament by South Australian Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff, would force political parties to offer an unsubscribe function to their unsolicited election messages.
The bill was introduced on the same day the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed that almost 11, 200 spam complaints were made by the Australian public in the past financial year.
The spam issue had returned to the public eye when unsolicited political text messages from MP Craig Kelly were sent out, resulting in hundreds of Australians lodging official complaints to ACMA.
The Spam Act has seen to Woolworths being fined more than $1 million for sending commercial emails without consent. Kogan Australia was also fined $310,000 under the Act for sending commercial emails without an unsubscribe option.
However, the current legislation of the Spam Act, which has been used to fine businesses in Australia for sending unsolicited text messages and emails, exempts registered political parties from its large number of requirements.
With the increase of reports over the political spam messages, the Australian Government’s media and communication watchdog undertook nine investigations to see whether or not the unsolicited political messages broke the Spam Act in the last financial year, which is triple the number of investigations compared to the previous year.
Aside from this, ACMA also undertook a further 14 investigations into whether “do not call” register laws were breached.
The media and communication watchdog has so far has issued four infringements, six enforceable undertakings and eight formal warnings across both of the investigation categories.
Out of these investigations, one proceeding remains before the Federal Court.
With AAP
Eliza Sayon is an experienced writer who specialises in corporate and government communications. She is the content producer for Public Spectrum, an online knowledge-based platform for and about the Australian public sector.
