KEY POINTS:
A push to get a local Do Not Call Register to stop telemarketers making annoying calls at dinner time is gathering steam, with the Privacy Commissioner saying the idea is worth looking into.
United Future deputy leader Judy Turner says a register, which have proved popular in Australia and the US, should get widespread political support.
Despite being less than a month old, the Australian Do Not Call Register already has 1,220,118 numbers on it - all from people who don't want to be harassed by telemarketers - while the American version has about 140 million numbers on it.
Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff says while her office does not get many calls about the telemarketers ringing, it did get complaints about how callers got information in the first place - from public lists and registers.
"We're not getting a whole lot of complaints about it but whenever I go out and talk to groups, as I do often, almost always someone in the audience says "can't we do something about being interrupted at dinner time by phone calls?"
With the increase of voice over internet protocol (VoIP), cheap calling and the growth of global call centres, there is potential for telemarketing problems to become worse.
"Although we don't appear to have a huge problem here at the moment, that could quickly change. The technology is going to make it easier," says Shroff.
"My view is that, yes, it's time to have a serious look at it and I welcome Judy Turner raising awareness about it, and perhaps taking a practical step to have it looked at more seriously." The registers are, however, "expensive to set up, expensive to ad- minister and tricky to enforce".
Turner says the numbers signing up for Australia and the US show the depth of feeling about telemarketing.
"It's a little bit like junk mail in your letterbox - you can slap something on the front of your box and request not to have it, or be selective about what you do want to receive," says Turner.
"But the difference with checking your letterbox is you choose when you clear your box or attend to it, but with a telephone call in the middle of dinner, it's more intrusive.
"I have had great feedback from people fed up with being harassed in their home during dinner, or when enjoying scarce family time, by companies trying to sell them products they have no interest in.
"The voluntary list we have is not binding. Many people tell me they have taken the time to sign up, but are still receiving calls from telemarketers."
Keith Norris, chief executive of the NZ Marketing Association, says a voluntary name removal list run by the association now had 43,000 names on it.
"I would be a hypocrite to suggest it would not be a good thing because we've been running it for the past ten years on a voluntary basis," he says.
"We wouldn't have done that had we not believed there were people who don't wish to receive unsolicited communications."
Before everyone rushes into creating a new register, there are a few things that should be pointed out, says Norris.
"It's a bit of a monster. The Government better make sure they've got it properly resourced and funded, because it's likely to sweep them off their feet."
Secondly, says Norris, many of the phone calls that upset people are not actually tele- marketing, and so may not be covered by a new register.
"There's no empiric recent research, this is anecdotal, but when you look at it, the calls people complain about are calls from charities, fundraising calls, calls from research people and political calls."
These are exactly the kind of calls that are exempt from registers in the US and Australia.
"I think it might be a sledgehammer to crack a nut, unless they waiver all exclusions," says Norris. "I don't think bringing in a state-run service will change the volume markedly.
"The culture of our marketing in New Zealand is based on consumer preference. Marketeers do not want to do anything that is going to piss the customer off."
Norris and Telecommunications Users' Association chief executive Ernie Newman say unwanted telemarketing calls are not a big problem in NZ when compared to other countries.
Massey University marketing professor Janet Hoek says marketing is supposed to be about "responding to consumers" and if people are getting fed up with intrusive calls, then the industry has "an ethical responsibility to think about other ways they might be able to communicate with consumers".
Hoek says any register or law change should allow legitimate market research.
While most companies realise that annoying potential customers is not good business practice, there is still a need for laws covering telemarketing.
"Regulation is important, because if you expect companies to exercise some kind of voluntary restraint, that's really hard for them to do if they think their competitors might not," says Hoek. "Why would I reduce my activity if the consequence was to give my competitor some advantage?"
