The department has published a review of the act, in line with provisions put in place at its inception. Despite a variety of public submissions recommending changes, DCITA has adopted for the most part a 'steady as she goes' view, recommending that most provisions of the act continue unchanged, or be supplemented with a measure of pertinent education to clarify meaning.

In particular, there was a strong push to include fax spam in the act, which currently covers only messages conveyed in email and some SMS and instant messaging communications.

Small business, however, resisted such a change, professing concern at the impact on their operations of regulating faxes. Some suggested a voluntary industry code.

DCITA recommends that further consultation be undertaken on this front.

Some submission writers pushed for a lessening of the exemptions to the act, whereby certain kinds of messages, such as political and religious promotions, were allowed not to observe the general prohibition on messages to parties which had not 'opted in," and do not have to provide an unsubscribe facility. The report, however, recommends no change to these categories. DCITA was not convinced that there had been a significant number of messages that had abused the exemption.