Inspiring
Future Leaders
The Consumers’ Federation of Australia is happy to announce that applications for our 2024 Mentoring Program our now open!
The CFA Mentoring Program is designed to improve the effectiveness of consumer advocacy and consumer advocacy leadership with focus on mentoring, governance training and peer workshops. Expressions of Interest close on December 15th 2023.
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Are you interested in consumer issues and looking to broaden your volunteering and work experience? The Consumers Association of South Australia is the South Australian voice for consumers, representing consumer interests, encouraging the distribution of information on issues affecting consumers, and providing opportunity for discussion of some of the following issues:
Read More Positions Open on Consumers’ Association of South Australia Committee
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“It is important that we remain focused on progressing reforms to the Australian Consumer Law to strengthen protections for consumers and small business and improve consumer confidence.”
“The agreed priorities for 2024 build on the important enhancements to consumer protections that have been delivered in 2023, such as strengthening Unfair Contract Term Protections, increasing penalties for breaches of the competition and consumer laws, and establishing the National Anti-Scam Centre.”
Read More Consumer Affairs Ministers Agree on 2024 Priorities
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Previously, the Consumers’ Federation of Australia has campaigned for changes to current labelling laws for seafood at cafes, restaurants and clubs – advocating for country of origin-specific labelling. Recently, the Albanese government has announced that while there will be changes to seafood country of origin labelling, the labelling will be restricted to differentiating between Australia and overseas.
The below press release from Senator the Hon Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Assistant Minister for Trade explains some of the reasoning behind the conversation and the government’s approach.
Read More Seafood Country of Origin Labelling Changes
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Digital platforms with significant market power can use practices like bundling or tying of products, pre-installation and default settings to limit customer choice or deter innovation from competitors.
“Australians increasingly use digital platforms for work, study and play and can benefit from their wide range of interconnected products and services. While the size and scale of digital platforms alone does not raise concern, there is a risk that this expansion may be driven by a desire from digital platforms to entrench or extend their market power,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
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Original media release by CALC (24/11/2023). Consumer Action Law Centre has welcomed the scams safe accord announced by the Australian Banking Association (ABA) and Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) which has involved, for the first time, member banks joining forces and agreeing on key steps to enhance scams protections for Australian banking customers. “We are…
Read More Banking Industry Announces First Big Step in Addressing Scams
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Original media release from ECA (23/11/2023). Energy Consumers Australia (ECA) CEO Brendan French, quoted in response to the Capacity Investment Scheme: quote Energy Consumers Australia CEO Brendan French: “Energy Consumers Australia welcomes this morning’s announcement which is both an important step in providing reliable supply to consumers and also a continued firm commitment by Federal…
Read More Energy Consumers Australia Welcomes Announcement of Capacity Investment Scheme, Calls for More Work for Consumers
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Original text from CPRC’s website (24/11/2023). Date: 27 November 2023Time: 1-2PM AEDTLocation: Online Faulty cars are far too common and disrupt far too many lives. A faulty car is far more than just a daily inconvenience, they can disrupt lives and pose serious challenges for people nationwide when trying to resolve the problem. CPRC’s research…
Read More Detours and Roadblocks: CPRC’s Upcoming Faulty Car Webinar
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“eSafety and indeed the wider community, expect that all online services, should be taking all reasonable steps to prevent their services from being used to store, share and distribute this horrific content and that’s what these standards are intended to achieve.”
Read More Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Opens Draft Industry Standards to Public Consultation
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A few days ago, on November 20th 2023 the Albanese Government’s Competition Taskforce released a Consultation Review on Australia’s laws and practices surrounding mergers. Below is information from the Treasury website on the consultation paper as well as how to make a submission and what to include. The Treasurer has also issued a media release on the consultation which is available here. Submissions for the merger consultation paper close on January 19th 2024.
Read More Submissions Open for Consultation Paper on Merger Reform
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ECA is looking for an experienced Non-executive Director with a broad understanding of energy systems. It will be critical they can speak to and represent the long-term interests of energy consumers, in particular residential and small business consumers.
Closing date: 11.59pm AEDT on Sunday 3rd December 2023.
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Original media release by the ACCC (20/11/2023). Consumers are being warned to watch out for scam websites impersonating high-profile Australian retailers when shopping online this Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale weekend (24-27 November 2023). The National Anti-Scam Centre has detected a concerning increase in the number of reports of fake websites that look like genuine…
Read More Be Alert – ACCC Warns Consumers og Online Retail Impersonnation for the Black Friday Sales
