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

Australians are already paying more for just about everything. Groceries are up. Power bills are up. Insurance is up. Fuel is up. Interest rates are biting. The average Australian family with a mortgage is now paying, after tax, $29,000 a year more on their mortgage than they were paying under the last coalition government. Right now, small businesses across Australia are under enormous pressure just trying to keep their doors open. That is certainly what I'm hearing around the Sunshine Coast and everywhere else I go around the country. From the cafe owner in Caloundra trying to manage rising wages and energy costs, to the tradie in Palmwoods battling fuel prices and supply costs, to tourism operators, retailers, family businesses and local manufacturers right across the seat of Fisher, they are all saying the same thing: Canberra—this place, this House—just keeps making their lives harder and making it harder to do business.

Australians absolutely deserve strong consumer protections. Consumers should not be misled. They should not be trapped in subscriptions that they cannot cancel. They should not be hit with hidden fees halfway through a purchase, and we've all experienced it. Businesses deliberately doing the wrong thing should absolutely be held accountable. The coalition supports that principle very strongly. But consumer law must also be practical, it must be proportionate and, critically, it must be clear enough for honest businesses to understand exactly what is expected of them before they can comply with it. That is a fundamental tenet of our justice system.

That is where this bill raises serious concerns, because, while the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026 contains some targeted reforms addressing genuine consumer frustrations, it also introduces a broad and uncertain new prohibition on so-called unfair trading practices that risks creating massive legal uncertainty for Australian businesses. Let me be clear. The coalition will not oppose this bill in this House. However, we will move a second reading amendment and support referring this legislation to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for proper scrutiny, because legislation of this size and consequence deserves proper consultation, proper scrutiny and clear legal drafting, not rushed lawmaking, which we continue to see under this chaotic Labor government. That makes for bad laws.

This bill contains three major components. Firstly, it creates a broad new prohibition on unfair trading practices. Secondly, it introduces new rules around drip pricing and mandatory transaction based charges. Thirdly, it introduces new obligations for subscription contracts, including cancellation processes and disclosure requirements. Let me say this very clearly. Australians are rightly frustrated by subscription traps. They are frustrated when signing up online takes 30 seconds but cancelling becomes an impossible maze involving hidden forms, endless emails, phone calls or mandatory waiting periods. Australians are also frustrated when they see one advertised price at the beginning of a transaction only to discover compulsory fees suddenly appearing at the check-out. Consumers deserve transparency. Consumers deserve honesty. Consumers deserve to know exactly what they are paying before they commit their money. That is why the coalition is more open to the targeted reforms dealing with drip pricing and subscription contracts. Those are real issues. Those are identifiable problems, and targeted reforms addressing specific conduct are always preferable to broad and vague legal overreach.

But the major concerns in this legislation are not those targeted reforms. The major concern is the sweeping new general prohibition on—and in parenthesis—unfair trading. The bill prohibits conduct that may manipulate consumers, distort consumer decision-making or cause detriment, including non-financial detriment such as stress, inconvenience or wasted time. That is where the real uncertainty begins. While those words may sound reasonable at first glance, they are extraordinarily broad in practice. What constitutes manipulation? When does ordinary marketing become unlawful pressure? When does inconvenience become legal detriment? When does persuasive advertising suddenly become unfair conduct? The bill does not properly answer those questions. Instead, those questions will be answered over years through litigation, court decisions, regulator interpretation and legal disputes.

This legislation in its current form is a lawyer's picnic, and in the meantime Australian businesses will be left guessing. Uncertainty creates risk. Risk creates compliance costs, and compliance costs ultimately get passed onto consumers. This bill will become a lawyer's picnic because when laws are vague it is lawyers, regulators and courts who end up deciding years later what parliament supposedly intended. That is not good lawmaking. That uncertainty may not concern large multinational corporations with armies of lawyers and compliance departments, but it absolutely concerns small businesses. It concerns the family retailer on the Sunshine Coast. It concerns the local cafe owner already battling Labor's cost-of-living crisis. It concerns the tradie employing a handful of apprentices and subbies. It concerns local tourism operators trying to survive in an economy where confidence is already weakening. Those businesses do not have endless legal resources. They do not have compliance teams sitting in corporate head offices. They simply want clear rules, practical regulation and the ability to focus on running their businesses instead of hiring lawyers to interpret vague legislation.

Australia already has very strong consumer protection laws. The Australian Consumer Law already prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct. It already prohibits unconscionable conduct. It already prohibits unfair contract terms and a range of specific unfair practices. So the obvious question becomes this: what specific conduct currently escapes the law that justifies such a dramatic expansion?

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