Consumer Affairs Minister, Chris Bowen MP today launched and welcomed CHOICE's Good Practice Model in consumer protection enforcement.
CHOICE's report suggests a Good Practice Enforcement Model and provides a report card on how each regulator is performing and how they can improve their performance.
"This report comes at an exciting time in consumer policy in Australia as the Government works to implement the most significant changes to Australia's consumer laws and the way they're enforced for at least 25 years," Mr Bowen said.
"Importantly for the Commonwealth, it's lead consumer protection agencies - the ACCC and ASIC - are both performing at an above average level and the report makes positive findings on their enforcement outcomes, community consultation, resourcing, and powers.
"While there is always room to improve, part of the Rudd Government's response is to ensure these agencies have the enforcement tools to get the job done."
In October this year the Council of Australian Governments agreed that we will have a new National Consumer Law - based on the existing consumer protection provisions of the Trade Practices Act.
"An important part of these new reforms will address the existing gaps in enforcement, by introducing a wide range of proportionate powers which allow regulators to better tailor their enforcement actions to get a result for consumers," Mr Bowen said.
These new enforcement powers will include:
- civil pecuniary penalties for breaches of consumer protection laws,
- public warning powers, and
- disqualification orders for individuals.
"The National Consumer Law will see a national consistency among national and state consumer agencies, in terms of what powers are available to all of them, while retaining a capacity for state consumer agencies to take action locally."