The modern era of consumer protection laws emerged in Australia in the mid 1970's with the introduction of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) Part V - Consumer Protection, and later Part IVA - Unconscionable Conduct. This Act suffered from some constitutional limitations in respect of wholly intrastate conduct by an individual, and was later supported by State and Territory laws such as the Fair Trading Act 1987 (NSW). Later laws were introduced to regulate other activities such as credit contracts. More recently, laws prohibiting unconscionable conduct and providing consumer protection for consumers of financial products and financial services were enacted in the Australian Securities and Investments Act 2001 (Cth) Division 2 ss12BA to 12ED.

As a rule of thumb, a consumer is a person who acquires goods or services for personal, household or domestic use or for any use with a cost not exceeding $40,000. In addition, these laws provided a range of remedies which were not previously available, such as rescission of contract: Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) ss75A and 87.

Consumer protection now covers a very broad range of activities in which a business supplies goods, services, financial products and financial services to consumers. This extends to local and imported goods, where the importer in the latter case carries the same responsibility as if it was the manufacturer.

The range of commercial activities includes:

• Credit contracts
• Goods and services
• Financial products services
• Industry Codes - Franchising, Groceries, Horticulture, Oil Industry
• Manufacturing and importing
• Product safety standards
• Repairs and spare parts

and the conduct includes:

• Conditions and warranties
• Defective goods
• False representations
• Misleading and deceptive conduct
• Unconscionable conduct

Members who practice in this area:
Tony DiFrancesco, Andrew Gee, David Godwin, John Levingston