Page 6069 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010

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rights and obligations when it comes to their engagement with consumers, and vice versa. It is extraordinary that today the so-called party of small business stands in opposition to these reforms that help small business and help and protect consumers.

The ACT bill also retains a number of significant provisions specific to the territory, such as section 51D of the Fair Trading Act which provides a maximum annual percentage rate for a credit contract. ACT consumers continue to be protected so that credit providers in the territory cannot charge above the cap set at 48 per cent. The fair trading (fitness industry) and the retirement villages industry codes of practice are retained to provide consumer protections in these industries. The decision to keep them has been made because it is imperative that the government ensure consumer protections for particular ongoing transactions where it has been shown that protections are necessary, not just the protections that apply to retirement village arrangements.

The ACL will introduce new enforcement powers, penalties and remedies for breaches of consumer laws, including civil pecuniary penalties, infringement notices allowing for minor infringements, public warning notices and consumer redress orders allowing non-party consumers to obtain redress for breaches of the ACL. These powers mean that consumer law will be enforced more consistently and therefore will provide greater clarity for business, particularly those that operate across borders. And that is important in a place like Canberra, with the close proximity of another city such as Queanbeyan.

In the territory, the ACL will be enforced jointly by the ACT Office of Regulatory Services, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Currently, the Office of Regulatory Services is finalising correspondence to send to businesses to ensure that they are kept fully informed of the changes. The ORS website now sets out the details of the Australian consumer law. This is an important reform, one that benefits business, one that benefits consumers, one that provides clarity and ease of understanding and better protections for consumers when it comes to dealings in terms of business transactions.

It is reform that should be supported. It should not be reform that is opposed, certainly not reform that should be opposed because the opposition is too lazy to get its act together to debate the bill. I commend the bill to the Assembly.

Question put:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted—

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