Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This Labor government is serious about protecting Australians so they can keep more of what they earn, and we know Australian households are feeling the pinch when it comes to cost of living. Many families across my electorate in Brisbane are watching what they spend. They might not buy that extra coffee one week. But, importantly, they're comparing prices before they put their money down. That's why I was proud to join the Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury to announce that the Labor government is cracking down on unfair trading practices. Australians should be able to trust that their markets are fair, transparent and not stacked against them. We know that many businesses are doing the right thing. However, some businesses are not. They're playing tricky games and trying to deceive their customers, all to drive up their own profits. The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026 will crack down on this sort of dodgy behaviour by banning unfair trading practices, cracking down on drip pricing and putting an end to subscription traps. We're putting a stop to business tactics that rely on confusion, design tricks, needless friction or sheer consumer exhaustion.

The way Australians buy and subscribe really has changed significantly, particularly in the past 15 years or so, and today people make decisions about goods and services through a variety of pathways: browsing the aisles of a local store, searching online for the best deal, or entering subscription arrangements—many of which renew automatically. Increasingly, the experience of choosing, purchasing and managing services spans multiple channels, reflecting a more complex but interconnected marketplace. Now, these changes are positive; they've given Australians more choice and convenience. But they've also created conditions in which certain business practices can pressure, confuse or trap consumers.

Australians are hardworking and fair-minded, and we expect businesses to be fair-minded too. We encourage businesses to compete and to innovate, and that's a good thing. But, when innovation is designed to deceive or trick consumers, governments must draw the line.

In the lead-up to the bill, evidence was presented to the government that suggested that deception and trickery are not isolated incidents. In fact, more than half of reported consumer problems now occur from online purchases. One in 10 people say that online providers have manipulated their choices, while more than a quarter encountered unexpected charges added late in a transaction. Online, nothing is accidental: where the button sits, what the screen suggests and how hard it is to cancel—they can all nudge people into making decisions that they might not otherwise have made. This is all by design. As I said, nothing is accidental.

This bill is designed to address these issues—issues that consumers have told the government that they are frustrated by. They're issues and challenges that people in my community come and see me about.

The bill modernises the Australian Consumer Law to reflect how Australians buy today, how they compare prices and how they subscribe. It protects consumers not only from outright deception but also from subtle, cumulative influences that erode informed decision-making and, therefore, genuine choice.

The bill does three things. The first is a general prohibition on unfair trading practices. The bill introduces a principles based test to address unfair trading practices. Practices that don't fall neatly within existing prohibitions on misleading conduct and which are unethical and unreasonable could fall within this principle.

The bill sets out something fairly straightforward. It says that businesses must not manipulate consumers or unreasonably distort the environment in which consumers make, or are likely to make, decisions, in circumstances that cause or are likely to cause detriment. The test captures exploitative behaviour and biases that aim to overwhelm consumers with complexity or structures of choices in a way that leads people to decisions that they would not otherwise make. Think how many times you've been online and you've seen: 'Sale ends in five minutes,' or, 'Only three items left. Buy now!'

To provide practical guidance, the bill includes a non-exhaustive, indicative list of examples of practices that may contravene the new prohibition. These include impeding a consumer's ability to exercise legal rights or seek legal remedies; failing to disclose material information to a consumer, or maybe even just disclosing material information to a consumer in a way that is complex, ineffective, unclear or unintelligible—maybe it's ambiguous, but ultimately it may be overwhelming. This could be something as simple as a car dealer forgetting to tell a buyer that a car had been involved in a flood, or, in other examples, creating an environment—including by using design elements in digital interfaces, where these sorts of designs place unreasonable pressures on a consumer or obstruct the consumer from making or fulfilling their decision. A great example would be a travel website with a timer that says: 'Only five minutes to go. Book now to get this price.' The examples will help businesses understand where the line is drawn, without restricting ordinary, legitimate, commercial practices.

The second main element of the bill is addressing drip pricing. We've heard a bit today in this chamber about what this means, but I think everyone can relate to what I'm about to say. Have you ever tried to book a hotel, a flight or a concert ticket and the price you thought you were paying suddenly changes when you go to the checkout and click that final button? You take a closer look and you see that the company has added a booking fee here and there or a service charge on top of that. That's called drip pricing, and we're cracking down on it. Australians should be able to see the real price upfront in order to make a properly informed purchase. In one example from my electorate, a concert ticket promoted for $109.90 rose to $117 once a compulsory charge of $7, plus a service fee, was added to the last stage of the process. By then the consumer had already invested the time and attention and felt locked in to completing the purchase.

This bill requires businesses to disclose mandatory transaction-based charges at the same time as they display the base price. That means no last-minute surprises, no artificially low headline prices, increasing only after the consumer has invested the time and attention, and no business models that rely on consumers being reluctant to abandon a purchase late in the process. Just to be clear, this bill doesn't prohibit transaction fees; it prohibits hiding them. It ensures that businesses doing the right thing are not disadvantaged by competitors who conceal the true cost until the final step.

The third element of this reform is ending subscription traps. Everyone across this country, I'm sure, can relate to this. You sign up to a subscription. You decide you don't need it any more. You jump on the website looking for the subscription cancellation button. Sometimes you can't find it; sometimes you can. You click the button and it takes you to another screen. Maybe it asks you if you want to keep your subscription at a cheaper rate. You might click no. It takes you to another screen and asks you to explain why you're leaving the subscription et cetera. You click on the button and then it asks you to email the company to cancel the subscription, and on it goes. This tactic is called shutdown subscription trap, and we are putting a stop to it too. Businesses use confusion, dark patterns and consumer fatigue to keep people paying, and they won't be able to keep doing that.

Subscriptions are now a regular part of household budgeting. I'm sure we've all got them. Subscriptions provide access to news, fitness, entertainment software and many other services. According to research from the Consumer Policy Research Centre, three in four Australians have had a negative experience when trying to cancel a subscription. Nearly half have spent more time than they intended trying to exit a service. One in three have felt pressured to stay. One in 10 Australians have given up trying to cancel and just kept paying for a service they no longer wanted. Some people have been so frustrated by unwanted subscriptions that they've chosen to cancel the credit card or the bank account, just to get rid of the recurring subscription.

These unwanted subscriptions cost Australian consumers an estimated $971 million a year, and this bill addresses these problems directly. When a customer is entering a subscription, businesses must clearly disclose what it costs, how long it runs, how it renews and how it can be ended. The bill also establishes reminder notices. It's hard enough to keep track of what's going on in our lives generally, let alone a subscription that we might have signed up to five years ago, so consumers will get timely prompts when a trial ends or when a renewal is approaching. Cancellation must be easy to find and require only steps that are reasonably necessary. If you can sign up in seconds, you should be able to cancel just as easily. Many reputable businesses already meet this standard, but this bill makes it universal.

The bill is part of a broader agenda to strengthen competition, boost transparency and support consumers and businesses across the economy. We've legislated the biggest overhaul of Australia's merger laws in 50 years, ensuring major mergers are properly assessed and anticompetitive acquisitions can't slip through. We've boosted funding to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by more than $30 million to strengthen action on misleading pricing, particularly in supermarkets and other consumer-facing markets. We've outlawed unfair contract terms and, for the first time, empowered the regulators—the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission—to seek penalties for breaches. We're strengthening the Unit Pricing Code and cracking down on shrinkflation so consumers can see when products get smaller without getting cheaper.

Under the former government, the supermarket food and grocery code was merely voluntary, without penalties for wrongdoing. Under Labor, the food and grocery code is mandatory, backed by strong penalties that prevent supermarkets from using their market power to unfairly squeeze farmers and other suppliers. We know penalties make a big difference to behaviour; that's why the government has increased maximum penalties under the Competition and Consumer Act from $10 million to $50 million in 2022, and last month up to $100 million. Stronger sanctions ensure that breaches of consumer law can't be dismissed as a mere cost of doing business. They change behaviour, and they ensure that businesses of all sizes face meaningful consequences for conduct that undermines fairness.

Additionally, through a reformed National Competition Policy supported by a $900 million National Productivity Fund, the government is working with the states and territories to remove commercial and industrial planning and zoning barriers that make it harder for new entrants to compete. We're progressing reforms to create a single national market for goods, streamlining standards, improving heavy vehicle productivity and improving occupational licensing so that workers can move more freely across jurisdictions. We're also supporting health and care professionals to work their full scope of practice. Together, these reforms really strengthen competition and dynamism in our markets. They boost productivity and contribute to a fairer marketplace.

This bill focuses on consumer protections, but unfair trading practices don't only affect individuals. Small businesses and franchises often face the same vulnerabilities when dealing with larger suppliers. The government will consult on extending unfairness protections to small businesses, including those in franchising. That work is underway. In presenting this bill, we reaffirm a basic principle: markets work best when they're fair, when consumers are treated with respect rather than worn down, when innovation in business is used for the right purpose and when transparency is rewarded and hidden fees are not.

The reforms in this bill—banning unfair trading practices, cracking down on drip pricing and cleaning up subscriptions—will help Australians make properly informed purchase decisions. It'll help them manage their household budgets, not to mention saving them time and frustration. They will also help businesses across our economies. This bill is about fairness, and it's about doing the right thing. I commend the bill to the House.

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