according top lifehacker.com Google has reserved the label "voicemail". Should be interesting to see what is coming down teh pipe regarding voicemail..

http://lifehacker.com/5168841/gmail-reserves-voicemail-label-google-voice-coming-to-your-inbox

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-02-19.html#n72
yes, since 2006.

Not new. It was reserved when GTalk added voicemail support.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-talk-adds-voicemail-and-file.html