Domestic Violence

At the 2024 ACCC National Consumer Congress, the Consumers’ Federation of Australia (CFA) was proud to present our Consumer Advocacy Award for the best consumer advocacy campaign or project of the past year. The nominees this year were all strong contenders: 1.     Fair Call, direct regulation for telcos – formed from a coalition of consumer advocates…

Read More Design to Disrupt and Weathering the Storm Awarded the 2024 Consumer Advocacy Award

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The ACCC response to the latest draft of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code validates long-held consumer concerns about the suitability of self-regulation to protect telecommunications consumers. The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) welcomes and supports the comments of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the May 20 draft of the TCP…

Read More Advocates Argue for Direct Regulation of Communication as an Essential Service

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The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services commenced an inquiry into the systems and regulatory framework relating to financial abuse at the start of April 2024. The period for written submissions is now half-way through and will officially end on 14 June 2024. Submissions can be made publicly but the committee is also…

Read More Financial Abuse Inquiry – 1 month left for written submissions

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The 2023 Life Insurance Code of Practice (the Life Insurance Code) introduced a requirement for insurers to have family violence policies available online for their customers. For many life insurers this will be the first publicly available written policy indicating how they will support customers experiencing family violence. Family violence – in the form of…

Read More Financial Rights Publishes Report on Best Practice in Life Insurer Family Violence Policies

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The Centre for Women’s Economic Safety (CWES) welcomes the establishment of aParliamentary Inquiry into the effectiveness of financial services regulation in addressing financialabuse.The move follows calls by CWES for regulatory change so the financial sector can better respond tofinancial abuse and design safer financial products.More than 85% of women experiencing domestic and family violence experience…

Read More CWES Statement on the Inquiry into Financial Abuse by the Parliamentary Joint Committee

Rank the Banks Other Lenders and Debt Collectors

Financial Counselling Australia, in conjunction with the state and territory financial counselling associations, released its bi-annual Rank the Banks (and Other Lenders) survey which found the big four banks performing well, but all other lenders failing their customers in financial hardship.

The survey collates the views of financial counsellors on how the banking industry and other lenders respond to customers in financial hardship. Undertaken in late September and October 2023, 431 financial counsellors responded from every Australian state and territory for a response rate of 42 per cent.

Read More 2023 Rank the Banks (and Other Lenders) Released

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“ACCAN has unfortunately continued to receive extremely concerning reports of victim-survivors being asked to engage with perpetrators,” said ACCAN Deputy CEO, Dr Gareth Downing.

“Technology-facilitated abuse is becoming more commonplace, and it is unconscionable that Australians facing DFV risk being cut off from potentially life-saving channels of communication, due to poor practices and processes on the part of some in industry” said Dr Downing.

Read More ACCAN Calls for Consumer Protection Against Domestic and Family Violence

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Financial Counselling Foundation

“The $7.75 million will enable the foundation to not only provide support to existing grants that are
about to expire, but also implement new projects,” Mr Brouwer said. “This comes at a time of great
financial hardship and, consequently, a time of huge pressure on the financial counselling sector.
“Our funding priorities include family violence victims, tenants at risk of homelessness, First Nations
communities and people in prison.”

Read More Financial Counselling Foundation Welcomes Generous Industry Donation

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A tenancy advocate and financial counsellor, a domestic violence support group, a child safety program and media stories about funeral insurance were the winners of the 2022 Consumer Protection Awards. This is a media release from The Government of Western Australia: Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. It was originally published on 2nd August, 2022. The winners…

Read More Family violence, child safety, funeral insurance in awards spotlight

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ASIC has adopted a temporary no-action position to enable large banks (‘eligible licensees’) to withhold the reporting of certain credit information on consumer credit reports where reporting the information could lead to consumer harm, including where a consumer may be the victim of family violence. This is a media release from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).…

Read More ASIC helps credit providers protect victims of family violence