Today’s introduction of anti-spam legislation into Parliament marks the end of a long eighteen month wait for the Howard Government to act on spam.
During the last eighteen months, spam is estimated to have risen from 17% of all emails in February 2002, to a massive 50% in August 2003. This means it has taken almost three times as many expensive and offensive unsolicited emails clogging up their mailboxes before any action has been taken.
This is the cost of the Howard Government’s procrastination.
It was in February 2002 that the Minister for Information Technology, Senator Alston, claimed to be “concerned” about spam. Later he promised a report from the National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE) “to be made public by mid-year [2002]“.
However, all that appeared – in August 2002 – was an interim report that recommended a continuation of the Howard Government’s light touch approach to spam.
Labor released a paper advocating a tougher approach to attacking unsolicited emails in December of 2002.
It was only following Labor’s response to the problem that the Howard Government back-flipped on their weak position held previously. The final NOIE, released in April this year, came to almost exactly the same conclusions that Labor had already reached: principally that new anti-spam legislation should be enacted by Government.
It is about time that the Howard Government made up its mind to combat the problem of spam. It is just unfortunate that Australians have been paying the price in the meantime.
Labor has always endorsed strong measures to counter spam, and will analyse the detail of the legislation to ensure that it will be effective in this aim.
Media contact: Adina Cirson – (02) 6277 3334 or 0418 488 295.
