FAIR TRADING (TELEMARKETING) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 19 February 2009. Page 1691.)

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (11:08): I indicate that I am the lead speaker on this bill. I will not take up a lot of the time of the house. The opposition supports this bill. There is nothing more annoying than sitting down to tea at night and the phone rings and it is someone offering, in their mind, some telemarketing opportunity. In my opinion, 99.9 per cent of these calls are an absolute intrusion on someone's privacy and family life and their personal time with their family.

In many cases, the high pressure sales tactics that are employed by the very skilled people at the end of these telephone calls can be intimidating to some people. So, the opposition supports the need for the introduction of this type of legislation. The information that is now available on email lists and telephone lists is being used more and more by telemarketers of all sorts, whether it be mobile phones or SMS replies, where people are being locked into contracts. There are a lot of issues consumers of all sorts of telecommunications equipment should make themselves aware of, because they will be approached in many different ways by wised-up marketing gurus. Some of those marketing gurus are not even in Australia; they are overseas at call centres. I have a lot of issues with the 'Bangaloring' of jobs, as it is often put, where people in Australia are losing their jobs which are being given to lowly paid people, in most cases, who are desperate for work in Third World countries. India is the classic case.

The telemarketing we are talking about, in this amendment bill, as I understand it, is more frequently from Australian-based telemarketers. I do not know, though, because you are only a mouse-click away from the rest of the world, never mind a telephone call. The bottom line is that consumers need to be given some protection from this type of marketing.

The Do Not Call Register was started by the former federal Liberal government, which well over a million households have subscribed to, where your telephone number goes on to a 'do not call' list. Telemarketers are given this list, and I understand that there is a fair degree of compliance with this list. That has helped quite a bit with the annoying side of the telemarketing industry.

However, I still see the need to provide some increased protection for people who are entering into those contracts, and that is why the opposition is supporting this legislation, to make sure that people are protected from those telemarketers who get on the phone to persuade people to enter into a contract, and that is happening here.

The cooling off period is being extended to 10 days—that is the main tenet of the bill. The bill also provides that the telemarketer must make it clear to the person who is entering into the contract the total consideration to be paid or provided by the consumer and, if the total consideration is not ascertainable at the time of the contract, it must also be provided in writing.

The need to make sure that people are 100 per cent clear about what they are entering into, particularly in a telephone conversation, is vital. The opposition is supporting this legislation; it is overdue, and it is good that it has been introduced to this house. I will not take the house's time anymore, other than to indicate that the opposition supports the legislation. I look forward to its passing both houses and coming into force so that consumers in South Australia can receive the protection not only that they deserve but that they have been asking for.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr PISONI (Unley) (11:14): I want to take the opportunity to say a few words in support of this bill. I think the major difference here between a telemarketing sale and a sale that occurs in a shop or through a service provider is that the telemarketing sale is generally a cold call. They are really no different to the same sort of call that you used to get from the old pots and pans salesman. There is a very famous American pots and pans salesman called Zig Ziglar. I do not know whether members have read his book but those of you who have come from a sales background may have read it in order to understand the basics of selling.

We need to ensure that the vulnerable and those who are easily intimidated are, in fact, protected, so that they do not end up in a situation in which they may feel that the only way they can get their evening back, or get out of the uncomfortable situation they have been placed in by answering their telephone, is to say, 'Yes, okay, I'll sign up; I'll do the deal. Where do I sign?' They really need to have some ability to get out of that situation once they have realised its implications or discussed it with friends and relatives.

It is particularly important to many of our multicultural pioneers, if you like—people like my father, who is 82 years of age, having come out from Italy in 1952, and many of those in the Greek community. I have said time and time again that I believe that those mass migrations from Europe, particularly the Italians and Greeks, after the war really were the pioneers of the multicultural community that we enjoy in South Australia today, and I know that many of them may feel vulnerable in that sort of situation.

Certainly, my father, who these days claims that he even thinks in English, would still have difficulty in understanding the concept of a telephone call that signed him up to a 'you beaut' deal for a phone, or something else. For somebody like me, and I suppose like many people in this chamber, receiving a call from a telemarketer can be a bit of a challenge. It is something that we relish and we may very well enjoy the sport that we could create with the person on the other end of the line.

I know of some tactics—I will not say that I have used them but I know that people like me may very well have used them—one of which involves grilling the person on the other end as to just where the organisation they are representing is located. 'Why are you calling from a withheld number?' is another classic question to ask these people, and, 'Who are the directors of your company', is another question that many of these telemarketers are not able to answer or feel very uncomfortable answering.

When you go into a retail shop, or a retail service business, it has a profile and you know where they are. If something goes wrong you can go back to see them, and they have warranty obligations that they are compelled by law to comply with. Many retailers, because of competition, have warranty commitments that go well and truly above those of the statutory warranty obligations with which retailers must comply as a minimum, and that is a good thing.

Of course, a warranty is only as good as the company that it comes from. The problem we have with unsolicited telephone marketing, of course, is that we do not know where that head office is; we do not know who the owners of that business are; we do not necessarily know what they represent. Even if it is a big company like Optus or Telstra, try getting a decision—try getting an explanation of your phone bill or getting something corrected.

I have a favourite line I use when I am told by the operator, 'There is nothing I can do for you about this area, or this abnormal usage recorded, in your bill on that particular day. Just because you had your phone in for servicing, for example, we don't think that is a good enough excuse for you to say that you didn't have your phone on that day and you weren't using it.' When the answer comes back, 'Well, there is nothing I can do for you, sir. You must pay the bill,' I say, 'Well, you obviously can't help me, so let me speak to somebody who can.' Then another five, 10 or 15 minutes is spent on the phone waiting for a supervisor to become available.

The quickest way for telemarketers to get a difficult customer off the phone is to say, 'We will call you back.' However, my advice to people in that situation would be to not allow that situation to happen because, guess what: you will not get the call. That certainly happened to me several times in the early days.

I am a little wiser these days. I tend to ask, 'Whereabouts are you? What city in India are you calling from?' The other day with Optus, I think it was the Philippines. I then ask for an employee number, and only then do I agree that someone can call me back. I must say that, in this instance, someone from Melbourne called me back within 24 hours, and we managed to negotiate a settlement of the bill. Of course, I was fighting for taxpayers' money here. The bill to which I am referring related to my phone account in Unley. We were able to negotiate a settlement, one with which I was not entirely satisfied, but there was a substantial reduction in the usage charges.

The point I am making is that there are many people out there who do not have that ability or resolve—or, some would argue, that fire in their belly—to achieve a fair and reasonable result, and they often become the victims of telemarketing contracts, for example, to switch phone companies. When we first had the ability to choose phone companies, aggressive campaigns were waged by One.Tel, for example. I can remember One.Tel offering all sorts of deals for people to switch from either Optus or Telstra to One.Tel for their home phone, and so forth. People were told that, if they paid a fixed amount, they would receive enormous benefit by switching over 'right here and now'.

If someone agreed to that, they would end up with a recorded message where a question was asked of them and they had to state their name and address and state that they agreed to the process. It was then described as a binding contract over the phone and the person's phone line would be transferred from one of the major carriers to one of the minor carriers. People thought that that was okay until their first bill came in and they discovered that it was not what was described over the phone. I know that happened to many people 10 or so years ago, when we first had the ability to move from the major carriers to minor carriers, and a very aggressive marketing campaign was conducted.

We see this situation all the time, where people are put under duress. They may be at home on their own and do not have a lot of personal contact with others, apart from family members ringing or popping in every now and then to say gooday and see how they are going. So, of course, when the phone rings people become very excited and they answer it. They do not care that it is a withheld number or that they are not expecting a call from a family member, because they have an opportunity to speak to someone on the phone. It may very well be someone trying to sell them a product that they do not want, need or understand, or it may be a call to switch telephone or electricity companies—which is another situation where contracts are conducted over the phone.

I think we should provide any sort of consumer protection we can to assist the vulnerable, in particular, and those who do not have the ability to think on their feet or to hang up the phone. I have always said that is the best thing to do if you receive a phone call that you are not expecting and you are put on the spot to have a conversation or even reveal information about yourself. When the person on the other end will not identify themselves or where they are calling from, I say: hang up.

If you want a bit of sport, do not hang up and just leave the phone on the coffee table and walk away. That is another way of dealing with it. I am not advocating that is necessarily a fair thing to do, but I know that some people may very well be tempted to do that—particularly if they have been the recipient of these types of calls more than once and particularly if they have been victims. I use the word 'victims' because there is nothing worse than having your evening interrupted by an unsolicited call on the telephone. Of course, it is a lot different from people walking into a shop and deciding that they want to see what it is you have for sale or they want to know about the service that you are offering because they have heard about your business or they have walked past your business and they know who you are. So, the Liberal Party supports the legislation and is very keen to see consumer protection.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:26): As has been said, we support this bill. It is certainly a modern problem, now with modern legislation to cover it. As has been said, it is a minor bill which extends the cooling off period to 10 days (which we know is the current situation in relation to unsolicited door-to-door trading) for unsolicited contracts made by telephone. I notice the government believes that the extended cooling off period will help those who are most susceptible to telemarketing sales tactics. The bill ensures increased consumer protection for those most vulnerable to consenting to contractual obligations for unwanted goods and services. I agree that the federal government's Do Not Call Register demonstrates consumers' general dislike of telephone sales canvassing. It has certainly been very popular and shows there is a general dislike for what is happening.

I am annoyed because, obviously, there are companies with call lists that share this information or sell it to each other and, as the member for Unley said, I am often tempted just to put down the phone and walk away, but it is not polite and not really ethical, either. It is so annoying when you are busy and these phone calls come in, particularly from other phone companies that say they can do you a better deal and expect you to know on the spot what your current arrangement is and whether or not theirs is a better deal. In our house we very rarely respond to telemarketers—and I think one of the reasons we do not get many such calls is we do not act positively. However, we do respond to charities, and there are many charities that ring us regularly—for instance, the association for guide dogs for the blind—and I believe that is a proper use of telemarketing. Likewise, the Salvation Army uses that method, and I have no problem supporting that.

I note, however, how annoying these call centres are. The person on the other end of the telephone is purely there to do a job. They talk like machines—they may as well be a machine, because they barely listen to what you say. They are so programmed with call after call that, if you say something that is off the script, they do not know how to handle it. They are programmed to answer set questions. You give an answer that is not on their program and they do not know how to handle it. It really annoys me that a lot of these call centres are based overseas. I am not racist, or anything like that, but they have heavy accents and a total misunderstanding of who they are talking to, the geography of Australia and our ways and customs, and it really annoys me.

You hear businesses saying that South Australia should be in the eastern standard time zone, but when you consider that most of the call centres are operating in countries like India, it makes a mockery of that argument. India is a long way from our time zone. It is an interesting and necessary bill, and I support the shadow minister, the member for Morphett, who has a very good hold on this subject. In this place we are a telephone oriented profession. The standard of service sometimes leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in country regions; I will continue talking to my supplier, Telstra, which is generally pretty good, but I have had a few troubles. If you cannot get a person in a hurry, it can get very frustrating. We support the bill.

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Northern Suburbs, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability) (11:31): I thank members for their contribution and support of this bill. Obviously it is not about closing down call centres or stopping people from using telemarketing, but about ensuring there are protections in place for people. Obviously the federal government's Do Not Call Register, as the member for Morphett highlighted, has been particularly popular and there were one million registrations on the Do Not Call Register within the first month of its being introduced.

However, there are people who we think are particularly vulnerable to unscrupulous pressure from these salespeople, and this legislation puts some protection in place for the people concerned. When you get a telephone call in relation to someone trying to sell you a product or service, there is no chance to compare or consider the worthiness of that offer, so providing South Australians with this 10 day cooling-off period gives the opportunity for people to do that, and places appropriate obligations on those companies wanting to use this technology. I thank members for supporting the bill.

Bill read a second time and taken through its remaining stages.