Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I recognise the late hour and that I have perhaps just a couple of minutes in which to begin to participate in the debate on the Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Bill 2009, in which case I will look forward to continuing my remarks at another hour. I am very pleased to follow the member for Oxley in this debate. I acknowledge the work that he has done in chairing the committee that looked into franchising. While this bill is not about that, I was interested in the comments he made about fair and equal justice. I could not agree more. I would certainly like to see his labours and the labours of that committee come to fruition in a similar way to look after the interests of the franchising sector.

It is not often that we consider legislation which has such a substantial effect on Australian consumers as the legislation that we are considering this evening. It has far-reaching and comprehensive changes designed to protect consumers from so-called ‘unfair contract terms’. Similar legislation, as the member for Oxley alluded to, has existed in Victoria for six years. What is significant is that this bill starts a reform process which will hopefully see uniformity in all consumer protection across all Australian jurisdictions. This reform process started back in 2006, when the member for Higgins commissioned the Productivity Commission review which has been instrumental in shaping this legislation that we are debating in this place tonight. While on the face of things it might appear that the 13 separate consumer laws currently in place in Australia are similar, in reality even small differences can have a substantial compliance cost for businesses and can create confusion amongst consumers. Australian businesses are increasingly operating across state and territory boundaries and as such it is of growing importance that there be uniform national consumer protection laws. It is hoped that having nationally consistent laws will reduce long-term compliance costs.

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