The Minister for Financial Services & Regulation, Joe Hockey, today moved to ease the regulatory burden on business while preserving consumer sovereignty with the release of the Governments policy on prescribing industry codes under the Trade Practices Act.
"The option of underpinning industry codes of conduct in the Trade Practices Act presents Government with an exciting opportunity to substitute market-sensitive coregulation for onerous government-imposed regulation," the Minister said.
The option of enforcing code compliance was introduced in the fair trading amendments which took effect from 1 July 1998.
"These Guidelines on Prescribing Codes reinforce this Governments commitment to explore ways of reducing the regulatory burden on business while preserving the sovereignty of consumers, who will always be entitled to insist on the very highest standards the market can offer.
"The new regulatory option will result in better regulation, not more regulation. The codes prescription power is unlikely to be exercised often, and it will be subject to the same rigorous regulation impact analysis that applies to other new regulation.
"I have a great belief in allowing industry to regulate itself. In an increasingly global marketplace, consumers have more choices than ever before and will be exercising their sovereignty by rejecting suppliers that fail to ensure high standards of information disclosure, customer service and product quality.
"However, where industry is unable to maintain appropriate standards through self-regulatory means, and when there is severe market failure, I will look to prescribe industry codes to make lack of compliance illegal and subject to enforcement under the Trade Practices Act."
The Guidelines can be located on the Internet at: http://www.treasury.gov.au
Copies of the Guidelines can be obtained from the Treasury; please call 02 6263 3963.