Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the most common comments I get as a federal member of parliament is: 'Why can't you people just agree on something? Anything!' If anybody were to watch question time they would think both the government and the opposition are constantly at loggerheads on every single point, and that every single point is taken. So it's refreshing to see matters such as this where both the coalition government and the Labor Party can come together and agree on some very sensible measures. And these are sensible measures. They are sensible measures that have come about as a result of the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendations. They're not hugely groundbreaking, but they are progressive and they do certainly improve the act as it stands.

In a past life when I was a barrister, from time to time I acted on behalf of clients who relied on the Competition and Consumer Act 2010; its previous iteration, the Trade Practices Act 1974; or the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001. I want to rise today to express to the House the importance of this bill for so many of our constituents. Around budget time, debates in this place often revolve around unimaginable sums of money—macroeconomics, huge spending programs, figures with some so many zeros they're almost incomprehensible to the average person. The Turnbull government has made those big economic decisions in my own community, with billions of dollars for the road and rail infrastructure that we need on the Sunshine Coast and, quite frankly, that's in no small part thanks to the minister sitting at the dispatch box tonight. I want to thank him for his terrific work when he was the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. He truly did an absolutely sensational job, and I have no doubt that he will do a similar job in his role as Minister for Veterans' Affairs.

When it comes to our constituents' daily lives, often it's not the big spending programs and government grants that have the biggest impact. We often talk about some of these programs—for instance, the $3.2 billion that's being spent on infrastructure on the Sunshine Coast. Sometimes the biggest impacts are small community grants, sometimes only worth a few thousand dollars. To the average community group or the average person, that's a lot more tangible than $3.2 billion. I mean, what is $3.2 billion? What does it look like? I don't know. I've never seen it. I've never experienced that sort of money.

But one of our duties and our privileges in this place is to pass laws which protect ordinary Australians from the harm caused by the misbehaviour among those who have power over them. Alongside record spending on health and education, unprecedented income tax reform that we just announced last week and $75 billion in infrastructure investment, the Turnbull government has been very active in protecting everyday Australians from corruption, from exploitation and from fraud. We introduced the Australian Building and Construction Commission to protect workers and employers in the construction industry from the threats, intimidation and violence of the union movement and its most lawless representative, the CFMMEU. We passed the Fair Work Amendment (Corrupting Benefits) Act 2017 to protect working Australians from having their pay and conditions traded away in return for secret backhanders. We passed the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act 2017 to stamp out the exploitation of low-paid workers, first identified in the franchising sector. As I speak, we have bills before the House and in the other place to protect superannuation savers from the improper management of their retirement savings. These and many other pieces of legislation brought forward by the Turnbull government demonstrate our commitment to protecting ordinary Australians from corruption and exploitation. There is only one side of politics that is standing up. This side of politics, the Turnbull government, is standing up for vulnerable Australians, and that is a very noble thing.

As I saw so often during my time as a barrister, ordinary consumers can face exploitation and misbehaviour from unscrupulous traders. It has to be said that most businesses operate with great integrity and with a focus on consumer satisfaction; it's at the forefront of their minds. However, there will be those who make mistakes, some intentionally. Some of them go out of their way, unfortunately, to make a quick buck by exploiting vulnerable people. The Turnbull government recognises that this is an unfortunate reality. Importantly, we also recognise that, as the world is changing, these threats change, and so the legislation that we have to address those threats must keep pace. We recognise that, in an increasingly competitive environment for products like insurance, entertainment, telecommunications and financial services, there's been a resurgence in aggressive sales techniques in public places like shopping centres and CBD streets and often in people's own homes when they get doorknocked and phone-called. Consumers can be just as vulnerable to high pressure sales and exploitation in those locations as they can in the traditional door-to-door setting. The existing law was not clear enough that these situations were covered by the proper consumer protections, so schedule 4 of this bill makes that explicit.

The government recognises that, in an era of new technology start-ups, alternative business-funding models and more flexible approaches to growth, public listing is no longer the preserve only of very large and well established businesses. That's why schedule 2 of this bill removes the carve-out which excludes publicly listed companies from protection against unconscionable conduct. We recognise that, among other things, the significant focus on speed and convenience in online sales has increased the prevalence of so-called preselected options. Too often these added-cost preselected options are not reflected in the headline price and can easily be confusing to consumers. Schedule 6 therefore ensures that in the future they will have to be made clear throughout.

Online sales in recent years have also dramatically increased the weight of goods being shipped or otherwise transported rather than purchased in person. Schedule 9 of this bill extends consumer guarantees to better cover the transport of these goods as well as providing consumers with more power to deploy those rights for themselves. We recognise that the increasing complexity of many services, especially services delivered online or using digital technology, has led to more opportunities for unscrupulous individuals and businesses to demand payment for services which were not only never requested but never in fact supplied. This includes, perhaps most notably, unsolicited demands for payment for the spurious renewal of online domain names. Schedule 3 clarifies that this behaviour is prohibited under the Consumer Law's false-billing provisions. Mr Deputy Speaker, I don't know about you, but nothing riles me more, apart from the Labor Party and the CFMEU, than receiving a letter in the mail saying that I have to pay a particular account for something that I did not ask for and that I did not purchase.

Ms Husar interjecting—

See this speech in context