The no junk mail signs in the flats where I live are just being ignored.
There is one main one for all the letter boxes.
Then individual letter boxes have signs.
I’ve personally even made a sign to say please read the signs.
None of it appears to matter as we still get junk mail.
The renewed trigger for this is the waste and recycling issue here in Victoria. The city of Darebin is currently sending all kerbside recycling to landfill. The issue for me regardless is that we don’t want the junk mail dropped off in the first place.And it’s happening a couple of times a week (today, three junk mail leaflets/bags).
What are the laws around Australia in the various states and territories that relate to junk mail - basically unsolicited, unaddressed material in letter boxes?
This extends to local newspapers (especially now that junk mail is rolled inside the newspaper and makes up more weight/volume that the newspaper itself), charity clothing bags like Kidney Foundation (sorry charities, but it’s still junk and especially bad: it’s plastic).
Once it’s addressed I understand that is going to be harder - like NBN offers in addressed envelopes.
Living in a block of flats, it’s easy to see junk mail accumulate rapidly in a day.
Sorry to those folks who supplement their income by being paid distributors of junk mail. And sorry to all those folks in charities and NGOs who want to share their information.
Question: What are the laws for each state and territory relating to junk mail - in the broadest definition of the term?
Question: Are there any federal laws?
Question: What would it take to get laws with penalties?
Australia Post is a Federal organ. Laws relating to post, including junk mail and spam calls and spam email, are generally going to be Federal - per the Australian Constitution s51(v).
There’s your actual problem right there.
Do you mean that there’s a letter box for the Body Corporate? You are in a strata-titled block?
Speaking as a junk mailer I generally skip the Body Corporate box. I ignore “no junk mail” signs because what I am delivering is not junk.
" Division 3 – Offences Concerning Material That May Become Litter
SECTION 45K, 45L & 45M
45K. Unsolicited Documents Sections
45K, 45L and 45M are designed to regulate the delivery of advertising material. These sections define unsolicited documents, proscribe the depositing of unsolicited or unwanted documents in certain circumstances and create offences relating to advertising material.
Penalty: 10 penalty units.
> Unsolicited mail is commonly referred to as ‘junk mail’. This category does not include newspapers but if residents have issues with local newspapers they should contact their local Newspaper Editor.
>There are a number of exemptions relating to some types of documents, for example: documents distributed by government agencies, power, gas and water suppliers and the like.
>Residents receiving unwanted junk mail should attach a ‘No Junk Mail’ sign on their mail box. The Distribution Standards Board (DSB) can provide, free of charge, a ‘No Advertising Material’ sticker, on receipt of a stamped addressed envelope to DSB Sticker, Suite 6, 151 Barkly Avenue, Richmond, Victoria 3121. The DSB maintains a database of all known addresses that carry a restrictive sign on the letterbox and if the problem continues, council or the resident should contact the Distribution Standards Board directly.
>Consumers can call the DSB Hotline 1800 676 136 to report illegal or irresponsible distribution practices. If the offence still continues, abatement notices and penalties may be issued to achieve compliance.
SECTION 45N
45N. Leaflets etc placed on vehicles.
Penalty: 10 penalty units.
It is an offence to deposit documents (advertising flyers/leaflets or similar material) on vehicles without the express consent of the owner.
Note that parking infringement notices placed on vehicles are exempted from this provision.
Note that because there are no circumstances where the placing of advertising materials on vehicles is acceptable without the express consent of the owner, the DSB has no role to play and should not be contacted about this form of littering.
Case Study 3 – Section 45N ‘Monster Truck’ flyers on vehicles in Shepparton In March 2014 promoters for the Monster Truck Spectacular in Shepparton placed flyers advertising the event on vehicles within the municipality without permits or permission. Greater Shepparton City Council was alerted to this by a disgruntled ratepayer who received a flyer on their car. Litter Enforcement Officer, Mark Parker, visited the area where flyers had been distributed, collected some, and contacted the promotion company responsible. The company was instructed to remove them as soon as possible as their placement contravened section 45N of the EP Act. The promotion company arranged to have the people who placed leaflets on vehicles to remove as many as possible as soon as possible. The majority of leaflets were collected and total compliance was achieved. Information is to be supplied for all future promotions. In this case a penalty notice was not issued, however council benefited by making use of its powers under the EP Act to make the persons responsible for the litter clean it up rather than have council staff perform the clean-up at ratepayers’ expense.
SECTIONS 45O, 45P, 45Q & 45R
45O.Bill posting not to occur without consent
45P. Advertiser must disclose name of distributor
45Q.Distributor must disclose name of depositor
45R.Person who commissions document must ensure that it does not become litter
Bill Posting is dealt with in a variety of ways by litter authorities, a number of which have experienced great success and significantly reduced the clean-up costs that they had previously been incurring.Some examples are
:> Utilising 45ZI to determine who was responsible for bill posting on property not under the control of the advertiser with a view to issuing penalties or prosecuting. Note that there is a significant penalty for non-response to a notice issued by Section 45ZI, which is equivalent to the penalty for the offence being investigated.
> Issuing a 45Y direction to the venue/promoter to remove all posters.
> Utilising 45R to prosecute the firm whose products are being promoted (this is particularly effective when the firm is well established and easy to locate).
> Placing stickers with ‘Cancelled’ over posters promoting concerts have also been used by a number of municipalities with success."
TAS
" Division 2 - Unsolicited documents and advertising material
10.Meaning of “unsolicited document”
For the purposes of this Division, a document is taken to be unsolicited if it is deposited at any premises without being addressed by name to a person who owns or occupies the premises.
11.Unsolicited documents must be put in mailboxes, &c.
(1) A person delivering an unsolicited document to any premises must not deposit the document in any place on the premises unless the person places the document securely –
(a) in a receptacle, slot or other place that is used for the deposit of mail at the premises; or
(b) in a receptacle or slot that is used for the deposit of newspapers at the premises; or
(c) under the door of the premises; or
(d) in a place that is in a building and is suitable for the deposit of the document.
Penalty: Fine not exceeding 20 penalty units.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to –
(a) any newspaper, or any material folded or inserted into a newspaper; or
(b) any document issued or distributed under, in accordance with, or for the purposes of, any Act of Tasmania or the Commonwealth; or
(c) any document that is given personally to a person at the premises; or
(d) any document that is of such a size, shape or volume that it is not possible or appropriate for it to be deposited in accordance with subsection (1) .
12.Leaflets, &c., not to be placed on vehicles or vessels
(1) A person must not deposit any document on a motor vehicle, or trailer, that is –
(a) in any public place; or
(b) in any designated car park.
Penalty: Fine not exceeding 20 penalty units.
(2) A person must not deposit any document on a vessel.
Penalty: Fine not exceeding 20 penalty units.
(3) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to a person if the person –
(a) is exercising a power given to the person by or under any law; or
(b) has the consent of the person apparently in charge of the relevant motor vehicle, trailer or vessel; or
(c) has the consent of the registered owner or, as the case may be, registered operator of the relevant motor vehicle, trailer or vessel.
Can’t currently locate that but the ADMA and DSB links allow you to opt out of their material. I am continuing to look for SA info as well as NT.
It appears there is no specific Act or policy for SA that can be found on further searching. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist but you might have to contact your local council or the SA State member to find out if anything exists.
The Environmental Act for SA does have a definition of Waste and specially you might be able to argue that unsolicited material might be “unwanted”
“For the purposes of this Act, waste means— (a)any discarded, dumped, rejected, abandoned, unwanted or surplus matter (my highlighting), whether or not intended for sale or for purification or resource recovery by a separate operation from that which produced the matter”
I notice that the Post Office now delivers junk mail and as they are exempt from the normal junk mail regulations including “no junk mail signs” it seems to be OK. Junk mail is junk mail and their website even gives a definition of what is junk. No doubt eventually other businesses will find it beneficial to direct their junk mail through the PO as well so it will never stop
We have a no junk mail sign on our letter box. We’ve not noticed a problem with our postie delivering unwanted junk mail.
Is it possible to further explain and point out the exact portions of the legislation or regulations being referred to. Unless mail is personally addressed, my understanding has been there is a limited exemption for which our Federal politicians are accountable.
IE Material deemed to be political, educational, religious and charitable is exempt.
An unholy alliance of thought for some to see politicians aligned with religious belief and charitable endeavour. Perhaps that’s why educational needs are included to provide for understanding of the alignments.
Auspost can deliver material that many of us would consider junk as long as they have been paid postal charges to do so. It then doesn’t always contain an address or even an envelope. It isn’t always in the regulations for them to do so, often it is added at sorting before they start their runs, I have queried my Postie about this and they do try to remove the articles before it reaches my letterbox.
Clean Up Australia has advice about controlling printed junk mail in this article:
Australia Post does deliver advertising brochures, leaflets, etc as well as addressed mail, but they are not exempt from junk mail regulations. According to their website, article quoted below, their delivery officers should not deliver unaddressed mail items other than “political, educational, religious and charitable” material (which is exempt from the regulations) to any letterbox with a “No junk mail” or “Addressed mail only” sticker.
If you’re sure it’s the postal delivery people who are leaving stuff that isn’t exempt, contact Australia Post and complain. Note that they don’t have any control over the other people / businesses who deliver junk mail.
Unaddressed mail
Place a ‘No Junk Mail’ or ‘Addressed Mail Only’ sign or sticker on your letterbox if you don’t wish to receive catalogues and other unaddressed mail items. Our postal delivery officers are instructed not to deliver unaddressed mail to letterboxes with this signage.1
Please note: Material deemed to be political, educational, religious and charitable is exempt from “No Junk Mail” signed letterboxes according to standards developed by the Australian Catalogue Association.
Please note: Registrations only relate to ADMA member companies so may not stop all unwanted promotional mail. If you want to stop receiving mail from a specific business or businesses, then you will need to contact the business directly and advise them to take your name off their mailing list.
1 Australia Post only delivers about 10 per cent of unaddressed mail delivered to Australian households. We cannot guarantee that other unaddressed mail delivery companies will do the same.
Does anyone have suggestions on how to stop junk mail being delivered. Have signs on letter box, Have reported to the SA, the National, and the Postal Ombudsman. Have spoken to the post man and also caught two people delivering mail and personally told them not to ignore the No Junk Mail signs, but still junk mail turns up at least once a week. Have even posted them back to the company advertising. Thought of throwing them on the road with the hope they may be considered as litterers
I have moved your post into a topic that covers some of the legislation around Junk Mail delivery. There are some links to some organisations that are responsible for much of the junk mail we receive. These organisations should be able to help you cancel many of the letter box drops. You have posted in this topic previously but may have missed some of the information contained in the topic.
There have been a number of topics about this problem, it may be worthwhile reading through them for some ideas. In that regard I have provided a link to a search on the issue.
When the results appear choose Relevance from the “Sort by” drop down box that probably will have Latest Topic as the active choice . That should provide the best order to look through.
From the Clean Up Australia site
Report it!
Report any junk mail which is littered, delivered in duplicate or delivered to a letterbox with a No Advertising Material sticker on it. Report offenders to the Distribution Standards Board on 1300 083 241.
Return it!
Redirect mail you receive back to the organisation by writing “Return To Sender” and “No Junk Mail” on the envelope and putting it in a mailbox.
The Queensland Govt is looking to change the laws applying to Junk Mail.
Is delegating it out to local councils, already under pressure to reign in rate increases a better solution. It is also proposing to reduce the penalties on individuals and businesses for not complying.
Have any other States or Territories taken a similar approach and if so what has been the outcome?
How it appears - inclusive of what others are sharing in the general community.
The No Junk Mail notice is widely ignored by Real Estate Agents, and various small business operators (most notably trade services, but also garden and tree services). Not far behind is the regular stream of tax payer funded mail from our elected representatives and governments. As though we need to be reminded of who they are, their branding and just how great it is in the Sunshine State. /s
To note Queensland does not regulate increases in rates. Our Local Government area has seen increases of 22% over the past two years, with the latest a 11% increase. The increase in housing costs second only to increases in the cost of Home Insurance. How local councils will be able to afford to take effective action has not been answered. Given the outsourcing of building inspection to Certifiers and Parking Infringements to Contractors is the answer to out source Junk Mail enforcement to a third party? Oh, I see - that’s what the State Govt is …
Leaves one to wonder if the possibility of a free for all for Junk mail delivery will be an unintended intended outcome.
I would have thought by now that paper junk mail should be banned outright, regardless of whether there is a “No Junk Mail” sign, with an exception for political advertising.
Perhaps if a business gets enough QCAT nuisance cases, they would stop it - but of course “the people” would need to have a law behind them rather than a law against them.
In most states, it is a local government responsibility for compliance. Junk mail generally falls under littering, when it is placed in a location which is inappropriate or signed as being unwanted. Local governments have traditionally been responsible for litter compliance.
State governments are generally responsible for waste disposal compliance which falls under their environmental protection legislation. In Queensland, this is waste disposal which causes material or serious environmental harm. Litter generally doesn’t meet the definition for material or serious environmental harm. The Queensland government appears to be clarifying responsibilities.
Local government have compliance officers and enforcement pathways for litter compliance, and it makes sense for local governments to also address junk mail litter.
Whether junk mail should exist is a different question. This would most likely fall under either State or Commonwealth Government, depending on the methods used to manage its publication and distribution.
Whether local government should exist is an additional different question.
That may be an overly charitable interpretation. In reality, just cost shifting?
To be clear, I was only talking about paper junk mail i.e. not a Commonwealth responsibility under the “Postal, telegraphic, telephonic” power c.f. spam, which is clearly a Commonwealth responsibility under that power.
Alternately it makes more sense that there is a single authority to take complaint to and to enforce actions. “Littering” in the general sense is leaving waste on your property and is primarily covered off under State level environmental legislation. And yes Councils (LGA) have a role, in particular when on public property.
How it is now in Qld.
it would also make more sense to increase the penalties to a level which would firstly reliably deter delivery, and secondly fully fund the cost of enforcement. Who ever is responsible for doing so.
That’s correct, but, that relates to its existence. State governments could also potentially ban its production using powers which exist for other banned publications.
While I would support a national ban, it currently isn’t banned and the fallout as a result is litter. It becomes litter…
Local governments in Queensland (and possibly all states) have traditionally been responsible for littering. The Qld changes clarifies that local governments retain littering compliance. The change appears to be the state government no longer plans to regulate junk mail as junk mail.
I addressed this earlier, and your interpretation isn’t correct. The reason being
Noting even general waste bot disposed of on private lands, such as a hoarder, falls under local government responsibilities in Queensland. Many local governments have local laws which cover waste management under local government’s jurisdiction.
The current State Govt Advice directs one to a single point for action.
If you haven’t already lodged a complaint with the Distribution Standards Board please contact them first.
It would seem a very simple step to keep a single point. We are not talking about an individual conveniently dumping a bottle or waste over the fence. Junk Mail is largely an organised co-ordinated and deliberate activity across multiple street addresses.
It does not need clarifying or changing. It simply needs the State Govt to recognise that Junk Mail is not the same as litter, or a very special class of litter. Traditionally Women were never permitted to vote, enter public bars or hold a job in Queensland in the public service after marriage. Tradition is not always a good reason to keep things the same. Junk Mail needs to be called out for what it is. It’s more than littering and deserves to be treated as such, rather than simply dismissed as just a form of littering. It has more in common with an organised gang than any individual/casual littering, IMHO.
Australia’s federal system means that this is always complicated.
I would suggest that the Commonwealth government could direct Australia Post not to deliver junk mail, without needing legislation. (However in terms of what I receive I think most paper spam is delivered privately.)
The Commonwealth government could probably use the corporations power to coerce incorporated entities (basically companies) to stop all paper spamming, either production or distribution or both - but that would leave out unincorporated entities e.g. sole traders or private individuals or partnerships.
The state government can pass basically any law that it likes, including impacting on corporations and including impacting on the telephony power but to the extent that a state law is inconsistent with a (valid) federal law, the federal law will prevail. So this is a legally messy approach, making it confusing even for companies that want to comply.
A national approach that relies on states further becoming mendicant to the feds is not favoured ideologically by me.
Nor do I see much benefit to a national approach as far as paper spam goes.
All governments would likely want to exempt political communication from a ban, both for reasons of self-interest but more importantly for reasons of being consistent with the Australian constitution. Don’t want to get kicked into touch by the High Court (again). I just know that the Clive Palmer haters won’t like this.
It isn’t practicable. It appears that in Queensland in the past there has been three. The Distribution Standards Board, the State Government and Local Government. Each level overlapping with others and potentially wasting taxpayer/ratepayer resources. Simplifying it makes sense - especially for the community.
If one doesn’t like junk mail (it shouldn’t exist), contact the Distribution Standards Board. If one finds junk mail placed in a location which is inappropriate or signed as being unwanted, contact council. This approach makes sense as Council has local resources to deal with litter complaints. It is unreasonable to expect the Queensland EPA or the Distribution Standards Board to send out someone from Brisbane/Melbourne to investigate a complaint in an out of the way location in Queensland. Such is very costly and inefficient use of taxpayers monies.
It is already recognised as litter for the reasons outlined in several of my earlier posts. If the State Government starts separating out junk mail as being special, there will be lobby by someone to start having special class for every different piece of litter. Then comes the administrative nightmare.
Whilst complicated, it is possible. It is done/harmonised with other things state jurisdiction but considered of national significance or requires national standardisation.
I generally skip the Body Corporate box. I ignore “no junk mail” signs because what I am delivering is not junk. 
