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New legislation will require the ACCC to respond to ‘systemic or significant’ complaints from designated consumer and business groups.
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ACCC to prioritise complaints from business and consumer groups
19 February 2024
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9 minute read
The government has today followed through on its election commitment to create a super complaints function (now dubbed the ‘designated complaints’ function) within the ACCC.
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The Competition and Consumer Amendment (Fair Go For Consumers and Small Business) Bill 2024 requires the ACCC to assess and respond to specific complaints submitted by certain, designated consumer or small business groups within 90 days.
In deciding whether to confer the status of a designated group to an applicant, the Minister will be required to consider the applicant’s “experience and ability in represented the interests of consumers or small businesses (or both)” and the “extent to which the applicant will act with integrity as a complainant.”
Similar mechanisms currently operate in the United Kingdom and Canada.
The government released its plans for the complaints mechanism in May last year, following concerns raised by relevant advocacy groups that their complaints were treated in the same way as any other complainant. Given the volume of complaints submitted to the ACCC every year, advocates said their submissions were going unnoticed or else they took issue with prolonged response times.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: “The proposed new designated complaints function will reinforce the importance of key issues impacting consumers and small business to the ACCC’s work, as well as the role of advocate organisations in detecting and highlighting emerging issues.”
Ms Cass Gottlieb added that the changes will reflect the outsized role advocacy groups play in spurring ACCC enforcement actions.
Under the changes, the ACCC will be required to respond to a designated complaint with a notice confirming it will either take further action or that it will not take further action. The decision to investigate a complaint is discretionary and it resides with the ACCC.
The decision to take further action or otherwise will come down to whether a complaint relates to “significant or systemic market issues” and either a potential breach of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 or that fall within the ACCC’s enumerated powers or functions.
Under the changes, the ACCC will be required to respond to a designated complaint with a notice confirming it will either take further action or that it will not take further action.
“Small business and consumer advocates have often raised problems of uncompetitive markets. This empowers them to raise significant or systemic problems with the ACCC – with a guarantee that the ACCC will consider the issue and respond,” said Assistant Member for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment, Andrew Leigh.
“Competition is the consumer’s best friend,” added Mr Leigh. By granting consumer and business groups clearer recourse for their complaints, the Bill will ensure they “get a fair go.”
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