Turner Judy: General Debate 
Turner Judy: General Debate 
[Volume:648;Page:17332] 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Personal privacy is a highly valued asset that affords the individual a set of boundaries to protect his or her personal time and personal space. Recently a very public itch has developed over the invasion into our private lives by telemarketers. Typically telemarketers ring at times when one is most likely to be at home which is the 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. after-work downtime or during one’s precious weekends. If one lives in Auckland or another main centre the problem is unrelenting with people reporting four calls in a weekend from the same company. The callers often will not acknowledge who they are even when asked; they will pose as market researchers; ask for 5 minutes of one’s time but take 20; and will not respect one’s clear and polite message of lack of interest. 
A voluntary register has been set up by the New Zealand Marketing Association but a large number of telemarketers are not members and I have received many complaints from constituents who are still dealing with a barrage of calls despite making the effort to sign up on the register. In May last year United Future asked the Privacy Commissioner to give some thought to the problem. Last week she released a report from the commission in which it surveyed developments internationally and in New Zealand over the last 4 years to update and modernise our privacy laws. Amongst the three recommendations is the idea of establishing a national “Do Not Call” database similar to those set up in other jurisdictions like Australia and the United States of America. In Australia the register has been so popular that on the day it went live it crashed due to being inundated by applications. In the United States of America 145 million people signed up in 2003. 
The register would apply to all profit-making organisations and would give telemarketers a number of working days after a person registered in which to become compliant before a series of fines could be imposed. Last week talkback radio callers were very responsive to the suggestion of a New Zealand register; the  
New Zealand Herald 
 ran a poll and had over 4000 voters cast their opinion with 96 percent in favour of a register. It is interesting that the Government has already moved to introduce an amendment bill on one of the three recommendations made by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner but on this issue of a “Do Not Call” register it has been strangely quiet. So too in an election year the National Party has been strangely silent despite the fact there is huge public demand for this choice regarding the volume of telemarketing that people are on the receiving end of. 
In the last 10 days one of the astonishing aspects of the response to United Future’s call for the Government to establish a “Do Not Call” register is the personal stories I have heard not just from the general public but from members of the media who have been interviewing me and from members in this House as well all adding to the damning evidence against this unacceptably intrusive approach taken by many telemarketers. One member of this House told me of receiving a call just last weekend from a telemarketer who refused to answer questions as to whether he or she was in fact a telemarketer. Eventually the member was forced to hang up only to receive a call 2 hours later from this telemarketer’s supervisor demanding an apology for his staff member who was offended at being hung up on. 
Telemarketers have had plenty of time to get a voluntary register to work effectively. It is now time for this House to scratch the public itch and to strengthen our privacy legislation to ensure it is much more relevant to our 21st century context. The call is now out to all political parties to make clear their positions and to let the public know whether they are going to support the call for a register.