15 November 2024

Doorstop interview, CPO, Sydney

Note

Subjects: Albanese government’s plan to stop the rip‑offs, drip‑pricing, dynamic pricing, subscription traps

STEPHEN JONES:

Look, I’m delighted to be here this morning with Erin Turner, who is the CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre and a long‑term researcher in the area of consumer policy and unfair trading, and I thank her for the great work and advice that she’s given to government on this particular matter. You know, across the economy the Albanese government is working on ways to help families fight the cost‑of‑living crunch. We’ve been working on increasing wages, we’ve been providing energy bill relief, we’ve been providing student debt relief, cheaper medicines, cheaper childcare. Right across the areas where we can provide relief, we’ve been doing that.

We’re also focusing on stopping the rip‑offs, whether it’s in up‑down dodgy supermarket pricing, whether it’s dodgy supermarket practices, whether it’s scammers and other people ripping off Australians to the tunes of billions of dollars. We’ve been focusing on these issues. But the next step in the war on the rip‑offs is unfair trading. And you’ve all seen examples of this.

Subscriptions – you sign up to a free trial for something and the subscription just silently ticks over and over and over. And big front door to sign up, almost impossible to unsubscribe. We’re going to change that.

Ticket prices that inflate while you’re online purchasing a ticket for a tennis match, a concert, a footy match, the advertised price and the price you pay bear no resemblance.

Or drip pricing or fake fees – you go online to buy something, you’ve seen the advertised price and through the transaction, they just keep on adding more and more fees to the transaction so you’ll be paying 20, 30, 40 per cent more than the advertised price.

Nobody can imagine a situation where they walk into a store to buy a pair of jeans and before they’re able to buy that – those pair of jeans they’ve got to sign up an account with the store and give over their credit card details, their home address, their phone number and all of this personal information just to buy a simple retail product. Yet that is the experience for so many Australians when they’re shopping online. They’ve got to sign up to an account and their information is then used and abused by the person who’s collecting it. Well, we’re taking action on all of these things.

Today I’m very pleased that we’ll be releasing a consultation paper on legislation that we will introduce into parliament next year. The consultation paper seeks feedback from states, territories, consumers and businesses on the specific measures that we are proposing.

Let me be very clear about what we’re proposing: a blanket ban on unfair trading practices together with some specific provisions which go to those issues that I’ve just described. Specific provisions around subscription traps – it’s got to be as easy to unsubscribe as it is to subscribe to a service. Specific provisions around drip pricing. Specific provisions around dynamic pricing. These are all focused and ensuring that we can stop the rip‑offs, and as Australians are fighting with cost‑of‑living pressures, we’re doing everything we can do to ensure that Australians can make ends meet. I’ll invite Erin to say a few words and then happy to take some questions.

ERIN TURNER:

Thank you, Minister. So this consultation paper today is an important step to stop unfair business practices in Australia.

JOURNALIST:

Sorry, your microphone is not on.

TURNER:

How’s this? Everything okay?

JOURNALIST:

You just swapped? Yes. That one works. If you could both go to that one, if that’s okay. Sorry about that. I don’t know what’s happening there.

TURNER:

Perfect, start again?

JOURNALIST:

Yes, please, thank you.

TURNER:

The consultation paper today is an important step to stop unfair business practices in Australia. We know this law will save people time, it will help make their lives easier, and it will save them money. The Consumer Policy Research Centre has been investigating unfair business practices for years. This year we did a national survey to understand subscription traps. We found that 75 per cent of Australians have been caught in a subscription trap that’s caused them stress, it’s cost them time and it’s meant that they’ve lost money. Great businesses don’t use these tactics.

This law is actually great for Australian businesses already doing the right thing. It’s going to even up the playing field so that companies that treat their customers with care and respect no longer have to compete with companies that cut corners. We know unfair trading laws work well. The Consumer Policy Research Centre compared unfair trading laws that already exist in the United Kingdom, the US, the EU, and Singapore, and we saw them working in action. So, for example, in the United States unfair trading laws were used to take action against gaming company Fortnite. It has returned $245 million in refunds to American consumers. We haven’t been able to take that kind of action in Australia yet, but this consultation paper puts Australia on a path to give more money back to Australians when companies do the wrong thing and stop that poor behaviour in the first place.

JONES:

Thanks. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST:

Minister, given the consultation process, will you be able to legislate any of these changes before the election?

JONES:

We’re required under the Australian Consumer Law to go through a set of consultation procedures, including consultation and agreement with the states. As you know, 2 weeks of sittings between now and the end of the year, so it won’t happen this year, but we’re putting all of these things in motion so that we can be ready early next year to introduce legislation into parliament. Specific date of the election – that’s above my pay grade.

JOURNALIST:

What about global retailers like Amazon and Temu? I mean, will you be able to impose rules on how they’re doing business in Australia?

JONES:

You know, this is a question of sovereignty. And the laws of Australia don’t stop at the internet. We’ve got to ensure whether you’re running a bricks and mortar business or an online business and whether that online business is being run and headquartered in Australia or somewhere else in the world, if you’re operating in Australia and your practices are harming Australian consumers, then you’re accountable to Australian law.

JOURNALIST:

And just in relation to dynamic pricing, I mean, if an item or an event is popular or sold out or in demand, why shouldn’t businesses be able to set the price they want for it?

JONES:

This is about truth in pricing. So if you advertise a price and you begin the process of purchasing that ticket or that product and all of a sudden halfway through once you’re hooked in, you’ve provided all your details, the price starts going up, that’s not fair. That’s misleading, that’s deceptive conduct, but not yet caught by Australian law. And we want to ensure that it does.

JOURNALIST:

Do you have concerns about the enforceability of penalties, I mean, given that the internet is a very hard place to regulate?

JONES:

You know what? We want to ensure that the practices change. The objective of these laws is not to impose penalties. The objective of these laws is to ensure businesses do the right thing by their consumers and consumers aren’t being ripped off. Erin’s already pointed out that we’re not the only country in the world – we won’t be the first country in the world that has introduced laws like this. In the US, in the UK, and in Singapore, and in Europe they’ve all introduced similar but not identical unfair trading laws, and they’re able to enforce them. We would expect no less of a business, a global digital platform operating in Australia on their compliance approach in Australia as they provide to any of those other countries.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think that as it stands Australia is falling behind in this kind of regulation?

JONES:

Look, this – there is no doubt. In fact, if you look across a whole area of consumer policy for about a decade nothing was done. For about a decade consumer law was stuck in the analog age. And my government has really stuck our shoulder to the wheel and said, ‘Where do we need to upgrade our consumer law to ensure that it sits well in a digital age?’ So the things we’re doing around surcharging, for example – we’ve moved to – away from cash, most transactions are now occurring with a tap and go technology. Surcharging means Australians are being charged for the new cash. The stuff we’re doing around pricing mechanisms in supermarkets, in fact, right across what we’re doing in scams, in fraud, the new Buy Now Pay Later regulations – all of this is about ensuring consumers have the same sorts of protections in a digital economy as they used to have in the bricks and mortar economy. Thanks very much.