Currently, a registered political party is exempt from the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 when carrying out political activity. This means that they do not need to honour the Do Not Call Register or any spam and telemarketing legislation.

Nobody wants to receive these calls and texts. Nobody wants unsolicited bullying and generally disingenuous correspondence sent to them in the middle of the night. 

In recent times it has become a standard practice for smaller, fringe parties to abuse the existence of electronic devices and bombard everyone in the country regardless of which electorate they live in or whether they are even eligible to vote. Public servants are left in the awkward position of receiving unwanted propaganda and misinformation on their departmental devices which may require a declaration or public interest disclosure to be completed. 

We therefore request that these exemptions are repealed immediately and breaches of privacy, spam and telemarketing legislation are followed up with the appropriate penalties. At the very least, these parties need to have a facility for citizens to opt out and stop receiving pest correspondence. This lazy and highly frustrating practice needs to stop.