CHOICE

A drawing of a piece of white paper with a pie chart at the top and writing at the bottom, both in blue ink. The background behind the drawing is a light grey with a shadow extending from the page to the bottom right. A drawing of a piece of white paper with a pie chart at the top and writing at the bottom, both in blue ink. The background behind the drawing is a light grey with a shadow extending from the page to the bottom right.

The number of complaints from First Nations people to the financial services ombudsman rose by 13% last financial year, with scams, delays in insurance claim handling and service quality the most common issues. 
More than one in 10 complaints from First Nations people related to financial hardship, double the one in 20 complaints involving financial hardship from the overall population.
AFCA says while the total number of complaints from First Nations consumers generally mirrors the proportion of the population, more still needs to be done to improve the cultural competency of the service to ensure accessibility to the ombudsman as well as financial inclusion.

Read More First Nations People More Than Twice as Likely to Receive Poor Financial Hardship Service

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Businesses are trotting them out left and right these days, but it’s not clear who gives them the authority to do that, since you already have a right to the three Rs without promising to keep matters confidential. 

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) effectively keep problems with a product or service a secret so other customers can’t know that it has a history of problems.
“The ACCC has made clear that non-disparagement clauses can breach unfair contract terms provisions. 

“Again this comes back to the imbalance of power and information between consumer and business, and why we need strong, enforceable consumer protections.”

Read More Non-Disclosure Agreements, Unfair Contracts and Consumer Rights

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“There are a number of gaps in the consumer law when it comes to protecting people from unfair business practices. These gaps leave consumers in Australia vulnerable to all kinds of unfair treatment,” says CHOICE senior policy and campaigns adviser Alex Söderlund.

CPRC CEO Erin Turner says Australian consumers deserve better. 

“Australians are missing out on protections that consumers in other countries have benefited from for decades. We need laws to effectively call out and restrict unfair practices. These laws will mean businesses have to treat you with respect and care.”

Read More Make Unfair Illegal – Consumer Groups Call for Strong New Laws to Close Gaps as New Research on Consumer Knowledge Emerges

The logos and names of the organisations, professionals and advocates who signed the open letter

“We know all too well the harm that inadequate privacy protections cause. Gambling companies hound at-risk people with targeted advertising, data brokers sell our information without consent, and automated systems discriminate against marginalised people. We’ve also seen millions of consumers harmed by data breaches when businesses store too much personal information,” says CHOICE Senior Campaigns and Policy Advisor, Rafi Alam. 

Read More Over 20 Advocates and Researchers Call for Urgent Privacy Reform

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Original media release from CHOICE (30/08/2023). “We gave several playpens a score of zero for performance simply because they had so many failures,” says Kim Gilmour, CHOICE’s team leader for household products.  In fact, eight of the 25 models in our current review failed to pass CHOICE’s key safety requirements – that’s almost a third, a…

Read More Almost a Third of Playpens Fail CHOICE Safety Test

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Almost a year after state and territory consumer ministers agreed to open consultation on options to address the gap in Australian Consumer Law (ACL) around unfair trading practices, Treasury has released a Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (CRIS) and given stakeholders 91 days to respond starting 31st August and ending 29th November 2023.

Read More Consumer Groups Advocate for Change as Consultations Open on Unfair Trading Practices