Australia

This page deals with the Australian consumer protection regime at the national level.

It covers -

• introduction
• policy framework - competition, consumer protection, regulators and consumers
• the Trade Practices Act - key features of the TPA and its operation
• other federal enactments - telecommunications, health, finance and other law
• self-regulation - industry codes, standards and the role of business
• studies 

The following page considers Australian consumer protection at the state/territory level, in particular the shape and operation of fair trading legislation.

     introduction 

The Australian consumer protection regime reflects the demarcation of responsibilities between the national government and the state/territory governments, with federal power deriving from provisions in the 1901 Constitution regarding "interstate commerce".

The legislative framework thus encompasses a range of federal law (in particular the Corporations Law and Trade Practices Act) and state/territory law, administered by a mix of federal and state/territory agencies. Of those, the most important in relation to online activity is the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), a body that is concentrated on major competition policy questions - eg telecommunications deregulation - rather than dealing with individual consumer complaints.

     legal framework 

A starting point for understanding the regime is the ACCC's Summary of the Trade Practices Act 1974, a plain-English description (PDF) of the key consumer protection legislation. We've pointed to the sites of the various agencies in later in this guide.

     studies

There have been no major studies specific to trade practices and consumer protection aspects of auDA and dot-au.

Works of value for understanding the Australian regime include Stephen Corones' Competition Law in Australia (Pyrmont: Lawbook Co 2004) and Russell Miller's Miller's Annotated Trade Practices Act (Pyrmont: Lawbook Co 2006). For discussions of particular cases see Competition Law: Cases and Materials (Chatswood: Butterworths 2006) by John Duns, Mark Davison & Caron Beaton-Wells, Consumer Protection and Product Liability Law: Commentary and Materials (Pyrmont: Lawbook Co 2002) by Corones & Philip Clarke.

For remedies see Class Actions in Australia (Pyrmont: Lawbook 2005) by Damian Graves & Ken Adams and Remedies Under The Trade Practices Act (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2006) by David Wright.

The CISG is discussed in the 2004 paper The CISG in Australia-to-date: An illusive quest for global harmonisation? by Marcus Jacobs, Katrin Cutbush-Sabine & Philip Bambagiotti.

Pointers to works on Australian consumer activism are provided later in this guide.




   next page (Australian states and territories)