Consumer Protection

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:46): I rise today to talk about issues of consumer protection and, in particular, door-to-door salespeople and people who call up people to sell them things. We obviously understand that it is very important that companies—particularly communication providers and energy providers—have the right and ability to market their products. That is very healthy because we want to see increased competition, particularly in the power industry where there are a number of providers that offer cheaper services. However, it is of equal importance that we balance that right with the right of consumers to be protected, and particularly those vulnerable consumers in our state, such as those who are elderly or those who have particular conditions that make them more vulnerable. I want to briefly discuss some of these issues today.

Many members of the house who will have been doorknocking over the past year in the lead-up to the last election I am sure, like me, encountered many, many door-to-door salespeople as they went around their suburbs—in particular, electricity providers. It is certainly a booming industry to provide that door-to-door sales service, but it does have its negative consequences.

In particular, I met with a family in Aldinga recently who were very concerned about a friend of theirs who has dementia and is in a residential care home. On two separate occasions, energy providers have come to her house and signed her up to products that she otherwise would not have wanted to sign up to. Her children, who have her legal power of attorney, were very concerned when they stopped receiving bills from her regular energy provider. They eventually found out that new energy providers had been appointed and went to vast effort and difficulty in trying to reverse those contracts that she had signed.

It really struck me that we have a special responsibility when it comes to places like retirement homes and nursing homes, and also vulnerable citizens who potentially have conditions such as dementia. If you are doing door-to-door sales, particularly if you are a persuasive salesperson, then you really can get those vulnerable people to sign up to anything.

Another gentleman came to my office last week and one of the things he talked about was the fact that he was phoned by an energy company recently. They told him that he should sign up for their product. He said he did not want to, but in fact they signed him up anyway. He stopped receiving bills from his previous provider and started receiving bills from this new provider he had never heard of. He has gone to much difficulty and expense to try to get out of that contract, which he did not agree to, and get back to his previous agreement.

We are trying to help him through the Ombudsman, and hopefully that can achieve a positive outcome, but I think it just goes to show the sort of tactics that can be employed in this industry sometimes, as the competition is particularly fierce. I think it highlighted for me some of the work that the former member for Hindmarsh Steve Georganas was doing in the federal parliament in trying to set up a do-not-knock register. We do have a Do Not Call Register, which I know many people across the state have signed up to and it is particularly effective.

Ms Chapman: It doesn't work.

Mr PICTON: I think it is particularly effective for Australian companies. What it is not effective for is scam artists, particularly those overseas, who are increasing in number, and we are seeing huge numbers of calls made out of Nigeria and other countries.

I had another constituent who recently received a call purporting to be from Microsoft saying that she needed to pay them some money to stop viruses entering her computer and to do an upgrade. She said, 'Well, I'm a Mac user; I don't have any Microsoft.' They quickly hung up and disappeared. It is a well-known scam and I encourage all South Australians to look at the ACCC SCAMwatch website, which details a number of those very common scams which you see across Australia.

I think a do-not-knock register should be something we look at as well. The Do Not Knock stickers are legally enforceable. There have been some federal court rulings, but you should not just have to have that sticker. If the carers of vulnerable people want to sign those people up for a register, I think that is something we should look at. I think we also need to look at the rules governing energy providers in particular, as a lot of the instances come from that sector.