3 October 2001

Labor Whiteants Consumer Safety and Security

The Labor Party's consumer affairs policy is a document designed to undermine consumer safety and security, the Minister for Financial Services & Regulation, Joe Hockey, said today.

"The Labor Party claims to support consumer sovereignty and empowering consumers and then sets about casting doubt about our consumer protection laws," the Minister said.

"Labor didn't seem too concerned with consumer protection, when they blocked significant changes to the Trade Practices Act earlier this year.

"Consumers would have been the big winners of these changes, including more powers for the consumer watchdog the ACCC - something the Labor Party now supports.

"Labor wants an urgent audit of our consumer protection laws, which they say are decades old. They had 13 years to do this consumer audit -- but they sat on their hands.

"Labor is pretending to embrace consumer sovereignty. But what they really want is more prescriptive regulation and less choice for consumers."