Marriage Alliance may be forced to explain how Liberals who did not sign up to its mailing list received anti-same-sex marriage campaign material.
The office of the Australian information commissioner wrote to the anti-marriage-equality group on Tuesday and said it had missed a 22 June deadline to respond to a formal complaint.
The office warned it may now exercise statutory power to compel the anti-marriage equality group to provide documents or information to explain the spam.
In April a number of Liberal party members complained they had received emails criticising Labor’s position on marriage equality and anti-discrimination law, despite having never given their contact details to Marriage Alliance.
In May Marriage Alliance apologised that “some members on our email list have had their addresses added without their consent”, but failed to explain how it had obtained their contact details.
One recipient of the unsolicited emails complained to the office of the Australian information commissioner and asked it to investigate if Marriage Alliance or the Liberal party had breached the Privacy Act.
The office wrote to Marriage Alliance on 1 June asking how the anti-marriage-equality group had obtained the complainant’s personal information, and whether it had come from the Liberal party.
On 10 June the New South Wales Liberal party responded, in a letter seen by Guardian Australia, that it had not disclosed personal details of its members to Marriage Alliance.
The Liberal state director, Chris Stone, told the office of the Australian information commissioner that party officials and parliamentarians received lists of members and their emails and unfortunately “from time to time current or former members have used those email addresses for unauthorised purposes”.
Stone, who also received unsolicited emails, complained to Marriage Alliance’s spokeswoman, Sophie York. He warned of “internal disciplinary action” if a Liberal member was responsible for misusing an email list.
York denied that she had used any Liberal party email list and said she had “no knowledge of Marriage Alliance having used the list”, Stone said.
But Marriage Alliance provided no response to the office of the Australian information commissioner.
On Tuesday the office set a new deadline of 2 August.
The letter also noted the Privacy Act allows the office of the Australian information commissioner to require a person to give information or produce documents if it believes they have information relevant to a complaint. It can also require a person to attend a conference about a complaint.
“Failure to do so can result in a range of penalties,” it said.
The office of the Australian information commissioner said it “prefers to discuss complaints with organisations without relying on these mandatory powers” but warns it “may need to use its powers” to seek information from Marriage Alliance.
It chose not to further investigate the Liberal party because political parties are exempt from the Privacy Act and because it had responded to the complaint and denied wrongdoing.
Marriage Alliance was contacted for comment.
