Page 579 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR STEVENSON: You did not sell anything. That gives us an indication that door-to-door trading is one of the most difficult areas to confront.
Mr Berry: Would you have the hairs on your legs removed by this man?
MR STEVENSON: I will not comment about hairs, in Mr Berry's case. For hundreds of years in Australia and other countries, particularly frontiers, there have been rugged individuals who were prepared to work to supply people with goods and services they would not otherwise have. Let us look at some of them. I think many of us remember some decades ago when we used to have people coming around to our homes delivering bread, delivering meat, delivering fruit and vegetables, delivering rabbits, pots and pans and so on. It was a very valuable service to people.
What this Bill does is place a tremendous strain - a tremendous pressure - on small businesses. There are many businesses that effectively market very good products via door-to-door trading. It should not be considered for a moment that, simply because someone uses the door-to-door method of marketing, they are in any way untoward, they do not provide a wonderful service, and they do not follow up on what they claim to do. Any suggestion of this is not okay and it unfairly denigrates many valid companies. I also make the point that many well-known companies indeed started out that very way.
Let us look at the principle of shopping in a department store after high pressure advertising has been done on television, as against having someone come along to your home and show you the product in the comfort of your own home. If someone goes to buy a product in a store, they cannot see the product demonstrated. Yet, this legislation talks about people being able to make a decision; allowing them time to make comparisons before making their decision. I was involved in door-to-door trading in Victoria and New South Wales. The company was one of the best companies I have ever had the pleasure to deal with.
Mr Jensen: It was not Kirby, was it?
MR STEVENSON: Mr Jensen says, "It was not Kirby, was it?". No, it was not Kirby. It was an insulation company that supplied cellulose fibre insulation; chemically treated, chopped up newspaper that was pumped into someone's ceiling. We used to market that particular product door-to-door.
Dr Kinloch: Ceiling to ceiling.
MR STEVENSON: Ceiling to ceiling, as Dr Kinloch says. To talk about this particular company and what we did encompasses many of those companies that would be included in this door-to-door trading legislation. The company for which I worked was actually a company belonging to the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .