Page 1205 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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If you are one of those unfortunate people who did not realise that they were being conned by the Labor Party, do not despair, because there is something you can do about it. You do not have to be on the secret mailing list if you do not want to. You can demand to have your name and all other particulars removed forthwith. As a public service to the people of the ACT, I would like to quote from this excellent publication that Mr Connolly found so valuable, put out by the ACT Consumer Affairs Bureau. On page 79, under the heading "Junk Mail", the Consumer Survival Kit says:
If you would like to be taken off a mailing list you should contact the Australian Direct Marketing Association ... The association will contact the relevant company -
in this case, the ACT Labor Party -
and advise them of your request.
The telephone number of the Australian Direct Marketing Association is 02 2477744. Better still, why not phone this person, Ms Rosemary Follett, whoever she is - after all, she lent her name to all the junk mail you have got so far - and let her know personally what you think about your name being put into a secret political data bank. I will be interested to see how many phone calls Ms Follett gets; she will never tell us that.
This is not only a matter of concern applying elsewhere to others; it is also a problem we must confront on the local scene, and we must do it now. It must be debated. It cannot be allowed to be imposed on the people of the ACT and the people of the Commonwealth without debate, and that debate must take place now.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (4.42): Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a very interesting debate, not least because Mr Stevenson has raised the issue and has argued from the point of view of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Up until this point, Mr Stevenson's distinguishing activity in this place has been his Publications Control (Amendment) Bill, repeatedly introduced. Consistency is not his strong suit. What we heard from Mr Kaine was the most extraordinarily paranoid diatribe against the Labor Party. In not one sentence of his speech did he address the issue under debate, which is electronic advertising.
I think it might be useful if we have a look at the history of this debate. Obviously, not a lot of information has been gained up until this point either by Mr Stevenson or by his close friend and ally in this matter, Mr Kaine. In 1989 the Federal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters held an inquiry into the funding of political campaigns, and its report Who pays the Piper calls the Tune was
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