The Spam Act 2003 (Cth) governs commercial electronic messages sent in Australia, including emails, SMS, and instant messages. For mortgage brokers and financial services businesses running outreach campaigns, compliance is essential to avoid significant financial penalties.
Key requirements under the Spam Act:
Consent. Before sending a commercial message, the sender must have either express consent (the recipient has opted in) or inferred consent (the recipient has an existing business relationship or has published their contact details for business purposes). Cold email or SMS to purchased databases requires careful assessment of consent.
Accurate identification. Every commercial message must clearly identify the sender and include accurate contact details for the business sending the message.
Unsubscribe mechanism. All commercial electronic messages must include a functional and clear method for the recipient to opt out of future messages. Unsubscribe requests must be honoured within 5 business days.
B2B outreach. Outreach to business professionals at their work email addresses may qualify under the inferred consent provision where the recipient has published their email for business purposes. However, this is not a blanket exemption — the message must still be relevant to their business activities.
Non-compliance can result in penalties of up to $2.22 million per day for serious or repeated violations. Businesses running high-volume outreach campaigns should have their processes reviewed for Spam Act compliance before launch.
