Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Brand in respect of this legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018. Having said that, I welcome the legislation and I note that it is indeed long overdue. In fact, the issue of gift cards, as far as I'm aware, has been a matter of public concern for several years, and I suspect it's been getting worse in recent years. Ultimately, that's brought this House to the point where it needs to deal with legislation, as the states of New South Wales and South Australia have done. In fact, the South Australian legislation went through its parliament about an hour ago, so it's quite timely that we are now dealing with the matter here in the federal parliament, particularly given that both the New South Wales and the South Australian legislation is limited, effectively, to those states. What is required is national legislation.

Even then, my concern is that this legislation doesn't commence until 1 November 2019—that is, over a year away. Given the government has already been tardy in bringing the legislation to parliament, to then say that it won't apply for another year or more is also of some concern. I would have thought that, having reached the point now where we have legislation before the House, we could have dealt with it quickly so that it would be there to protect consumers in readiness for Christmas, which is when most of the gift cards around the country are likely to be bought.

I believe that most retailers do the right thing. There are millions of small businesses out there. I would expect that a great many issue gift cards in one form or another and I believe most of them do the right thing. Regrettably, too many don't, and the numbers are probably increasing. There are always going to be unethical businesses out there that look for any opportunity to fleece consumers. They do so by sometimes using the fine print in contracts and at other times in any other way they possibly can. Even worse, however, is that in recent years, in my view, the exploitation is being perpetrated by businesses that, in the past, one considered to be in reputable industry sectors. I refer to insurance companies that today use the fine print, whether it's in household insurance or even health insurance, to avoid paying out or protecting the people who have taken out policies with them. We see that banks are now the subject of a royal commission because they too have been ripping off their customers and because of their unethical conduct.

We have airlines ripping off consumers when they can. One of the worst examples I've seen was only a couple of weeks ago, when the AFL grand final was being played in Melbourne and the cost of tickets to get to Melbourne, particularly from Western Australia, skyrocketed. They didn't just go up by what you might call a reasonable amount within the fluctuation of prices one expects; they skyrocketed. It was pure gouging of those football fans who wanted to get to Melbourne to watch the grand final. That kind of behaviour ought to be stopped. It's as bad as ticket scalping, which some states have introduced legislation to try to prevent. I think the same ought to happen with respect to gouging by the airline companies.

Then we have, right here and now, oil companies each and every day causing prices to fluctuate, which can in no way be justified on the basis of fluctuations in the price of crude oil around the world or their refinery or transport costs. Their prices go up and down on a weekly and monthly cycle, which tells me that it is purely an opportunity for companies to make the most profit they can, to exploit their customers by putting up their prices. It's not surprising that they pretty much all do it together. Regardless of which company it is, the prices go up almost in a synchronised way. That kind of behaviour has to stop.

As the member for Brand referred to, with the honey adulteration concerns, it also occurs with respect to food products, internet providers and substandard building products that are coming into this country, because those who sell them know they're in effect going to rip off their consumers. The list of examples of consumer exploitation happening around the country today is endless.

And so we come again to gift cards. I've seen some of the most unethical operators also using gift cards as a way to exploit their consumers. According to finder.com.au, in a report they released only a couple of months ago—in August this year—some $2.5 billion is spent on gift cards each year. Fourteen per cent, or one in seven, of those gift cards are never used. They are never redeemed; they are allowed to expire. With an average value of $77 per card, that equates to around $74 million in gift card value being lost to around 1.9 million Australians each and every year. There are many reasons why those gift cards are never redeemed: there may not be an appropriate product in-store, the card has unintentionally been allowed to elapse, or perhaps the full value of the card is not redeemed.

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