Page 578 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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more urgently. Tele-vending is now a particularly insidious form of advertising which is increasingly being used, where one sees an ad on television for a particularly attractive product and the deal is - - -
Mr Duby: The advertisement asks, "How much would you expect to pay for this?".
MR CONNOLLY: That is right, exactly; and "We will give you a free knife as well" - and a free something else - "Send no money. Ring up and quote your Bankcard number". Again, the consumer is clearly at a disadvantage there. There is no opportunity to properly examine the goods. The goods arrive, the Bankcard is credited, and getting a return can be difficult. This legislation addresses an old problem of forced or pressure selling to consumers. There are other areas that need to be addressed. I am sure that that is a matter that is on the agenda of Consumer Affairs Ministers.
Doing some background on door-to-door trading legislation, I was intrigued to see in a very good text by Ross Cranston - who used to teach at the ANU but now has a chair in law at the London School of Economics - a publication entitled Consumers and the Law. He traces the history of control of door-to-door trade. It is interesting to note that in some European countries door-to-door trade has been outlawed altogether, although that is not seen as appropriate here in Australia.
He cites one of the early prosecutions in Britain after their 1960s door-to-door trading legislation. It was the case of The Queen v. Potger in 1970, and he says:
Potger was a prosecution of a doorstep seller for obtaining money by deception, by falsely claiming that he was a student taking part in a competition. Interestingly, the defence was partly the contention that any lies told were not dishonest, it being common for fellow sellers to tell lies of this nature!
It is an interesting defence in door-to-door trade to say that that statement may have been a lie, but it was not dishonest because it was the practice in the trade for everybody else to tell the same lies. I hope that we have got beyond that. This legislation takes the fight of keeping the consumer protected one step further. The Opposition is happy to support the Government's Bill.
MR STEVENSON (12.31): There are major problems with the thrust of this Bill that is called the Door-to-Door Trading Bill but means far more than door-to-door trading. It covers areas far wider than that. I would wonder whether or not anybody in this Assembly has actually done any door-to-door trading.
Mr Stefaniak: Yes, and I did not sell anything either.
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