ACTCOSS and Care Inc Joint Submission: Review of the Consumer Protection Code

We welcome the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission’s invitation to highlight existing and emerging consumer protection issues during the Consumer Protection Code Review.  

The submission reflects ACTCOSS’s role as a peak body working to challenge systems, policies and structures that contribute to poverty and marginalisation in the ACT and Care’s role as a community organisation supporting people experiencing financial challenges. Our submission reflects both general concerns about consumer protection processes, and specific issues raised by energy provision as a driver of financial pressure in the ACT.Together we made recommendations to:

•   shift the burden of ensuring consumer protection to regulators and service providers, and away from individual consumers
•  focus on addressing structural and system-level issues that cause harm to consumers, rather than focusing on personal characteristics of individual consumers,
• consider how the changing nature of energy provision can be managed to reduce impacts on consumers, including dealing with gas decommissioning and the move to smart meters, and
•  amend the consumer protection code and other instruments as needed to reflect our recommendations.

Download the full submission to read below.