The Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs, Madeleine King MP, has expressed her disappointment with the shambolic Liberal government, for their silence on crucial consumer affairs law reforms.

Friday’s (26 October) Consumer Affairs Forum resulted in some wins for consumers, but there was unsatisfactory movement on several important areas of consumer law, including: pay day lending, paper billing fees and ticket reselling.

“This government is not doing enough to protect Australian consumers. The Labor Party has been leading on consumer affairs policy for years,” Ms King said.

“The Labor Party introduced a Private Member’s Bill to reform payday lending and rent-to-buy laws that was an exact copy of the Government’s own draft legislation, but the Government has failed to do anything other than delay reforms in this area.”

“Now the Convenor of the Liberal Parliamentary Friends of Pay Day Lending, Assistant Treasurer Stuart Robert, wants to wait until after the Banking Royal Commission ends, despite the Government backing the recommendations of the Small Amount Credit Contracts 676 days ago!”

“The Labor Party is also calling for a ban on paper billing fees for vulnerable consumers, but changes to the law have been delayed another 12 months.”

And while Ms King welcomed the Forum’s decision to require ticket resale websites to disclose the face value of tickets and that the website is not a primary ticket seller, she said “Reforms to ticket reselling laws need to go further to protect Australian consumers.”

The Forum was already delayed nearly 2 months because of Liberal Party leadership turmoil. This useless Liberal Government has failed to show any leadership on key consumer law reform and continues to fail Australian consumers.

BACKGROUND

The Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs released their communique following their meeting on Friday 26 October.