Page 5635 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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implementation process for the legislation. In March this year, the Australian government passed the Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Act (No 1) 2010, the first of two acts to implement the ACL. This act includes provisions on unfair contract terms, enhanced performance and redress provisions for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
In June this year, the Australian parliament passed the Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Act (No 2) 2010, which implements the remainder of the ACL, including consumer protections and provisions relating to unfair practices and consumer transactions.
The bill I present today amends fair trading law in the ACT to apply the ACL as a law of the territory. I am pleased to present this bill as the ACL will, for the first time, provide a set of nationally consistent consumer laws for both businesses and individuals. Among the changes implemented through the ACL are:
a single set of definitions and interpretive provisions;
a single set of statutory consumer guarantees;
a new, national law on unfair contract terms;
a single set of provisions about unfair practices and fair trading;
a new national regime for unsolicited consumer agreements;
simple national rules for lay-by agreements;
a new, national product safety legislative regime; and
new, national provisions on information standards, which apply to services as well as goods.
Previously, consumers had to enforce their rights as breaches of contract, often requiring an understanding of contract law. The new statutory consumer guarantees mean that consumers will no longer need to understand contract law in order to enforce their rights, since any failure by a supplier of a statutory consumer guarantee can be enforced as a breach of the ACL.
In addition, the new unfair contract terms mean that consumers will have better, more practical protections under standard-form contracts, like those offered for mobile phones or gym memberships. Consumers will now have the ability to challenge the terms of such contracts by making a complaint to the ACCC, allowing that body, for example, to ask courts to strike out unfair contract terms.
This bill substantially repeals ACT fair trading legislation and adopts the ACL as territory law. The bill repeals the Fair Trading (Consumer Affairs) Act 1973, the Door-to-Door Trading Act 1991 and the Lay-By Sales Agreements Act 1963. Substantive provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1992, which are replaced by the ACL, are also repealed. These acts, which up until now have made up the robust consumer law that has operated in the ACT, have been substantially incorporated into the ACL.
The ACL has been developed with reference to best practice in existing state and territory consumer laws, incorporating the lessons learned across jurisdictions and further strengthening the practical effect of the ACL when it fully commences in jurisdictions on 1 January 2011.
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