Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Payman for the question and for the heads-up that she was wanting to ask a question on this. I heard her two-minute statement, incidentally, which covered this matter as well. As was outlined in the question, this is an issue the government has done quite a bit of work on. In fact, consultation started some time ago last year on a number of these areas and finished in December 2024. This is an area the Prime Minister has been very clear about, as has the Treasurer, the Assistant Treasurer and Dr Leigh, who's been leading this work in the other place

Fifty-nine submissions were received, including six confidential submissions. Treasury has since held a number of bilateral meetings and roundtables with stakeholders, including consumer advocates, industry groups and academics. In total, 138 written submissions have been received over the two rounds of consultation. This is an area where we have to work with the state and territory consumer affairs ministers. The government has considered the feedback provided and will focus on unfair-trading-practice reforms to address a range of manipulative practices, including unfair subscription practices such as: subscription traps that make cancelling a subscription difficult; drip-pricing practices, where fees are hidden or added through the stages of a purchase; and the use of dark patterns, which manipulate or undermine consumer decision-making in digital interfaces.

Treasury is now completing the regulatory impact analysis to inform decision-making on reforms to unfair trading practices and is engaging with states and territories to settle a final reform proposal. We do have to have agreement with states and territories. (Time expired)