On 10 March 1876, Alexander Bell called Thomas Watson. By today’s standards, unremarkable. But in 1876, he had made the world’s first telephone call.
Some 130 years later, today’s World Telephone Day celebrates that call, in an environment very different from Alexander Bell’s. Telephones of various types, shapes, colours and sizes are enmeshed in our everyday lives.
Today’s phones are personal and business necessities. They can be fashion accessories. They’re more compact, more mobile, and we rely upon them more than ever before.
A business without a phone is a business not open for business.
Perhaps that’s why business opposes Rudd Labor’s plan to extend the scope of the ‘Do Not Call’ Register to business numbers.
The Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill would allow all Australian telephone and fax numbers to be listed on the register.
Labor’s Bill casts the ‘telemarketing’ net so wide that it catches not only telemarketing businesses, but nets ‘routine’ business calls made by most businesses.
As Fairfax told a Senate Committee: “‘telemarketing’ is a word that means different things to different people”.
This uncertainty, of itself, comes at a cost to business.
But there’s uncertainty too, for individuals wanting to call business. Is an individual or volunteer seeking work or offering assistance to a local business, ‘cold calling’ and telemarketing their services?
In principle, expanding those who can register “don’t call us”, sounds worthy. There’ll be winners, who will want to register to not be called. There’ll be losers, who will have to check – or ‘wash’ – numbers they propose to call, with the Communications watchdog, pay a fee for the privilege, and create and maintain internal do-not-call records.
The principle becomes more worrisome than worthy, if the government can’t substantiate either the winners or the losers. The principle becomes worthless, if in practice, the losers outnumber the winners.
The Government says this bill is for business benefit, but can’t offer any proof that business will benefit.
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy hasn’t substantiated how many businesses will benefit by signing up to an extended register or how many (and how often) businesses will be burdened by additional compliance costs and red tape.
He hasn’t, because he can’t, because he doesn’t know.
The best he can offer as to why Rudd Labor will supposedly ‘help’ businesses by extending the Do Not Call Register, is that it’s his view that it should.
When asked during Senate Estimates for further clarification, Senator Conroy said: “It has been a particular concern of mine that unwanted and unsolicited calls and faxes are wasting valuable business resources and could potentially affect the operation of emergency service organisations.”
Will business really say “Don’t call us; we’re on Do Not Call”? Hardly. In reality, a minority is likely to ‘opt in’, yet the majority will be required to regularly check whether the many they wish to call, are any of the few who don’t want to be called. Got that?
In the week the world celebrates its first phone call, Parliament was destined to debate Rudd Labor’s Bill to reign in phone calls.
But the Government worked out it had made the wrong call because Rudd Labor has taken the Do Not Call Register Legislation Amendment Bill off its policy speed dial and put it on hold.
Senator Mary Jo Fisher is the Deputy Chairperson, Senate Standing Legislation Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts.
A copy of the Senate report is available online.
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