Submissions

The Federal Government has made an important commitment to legislate unfair trading. We see this as one of the most powerful consumer protections that, legislated clearly, will greatly benefit Australians. Consumer groups welcome the opportunity to work with Treasury and relevant Ministers to make these reforms as clear and effective as possible. The proposed exposure draft on unfair trading has no general ban for unfair trading. This is an important element to get right.

Financial Rights, Consumer Action and Financial Counsellors’ Association of Western Australia (FCAWA) generally supports the CGC continuing to prioritise work on complaints handling, identification and treatment of vulnerable consumers, financial hardship, temporary accommodation, scope of works, cash settlements and claims delays and external experts. We have noted ongoing issues with insurers refusing to recognise valid Third Party Authorities. Consistent acceptance of authorised representatives remains essential to fair and accessible claims handling. We think it is worth examining insurer’s compliance with Clause 98 that insurers will “try to make sure our processes are flexible enough to recognise the authority of your support person.”

Implementing an industry wide DSM for add-on insurance was one of the key recommendations Commissioner Hayne made for the insurance industry. Known behavioural biases inherent in the add-on sales process have been long exploited by the insurance industry and their retailing partners, which have prioritised making a quick buck over selling suitable insurance products that people want and need. The sale of these products continues to cause significant consumer harm, particularly in situations where excessive commissions are being paid to retailers for pushing poor value – and sometimes worthless – insurance products.

We support the separate submission made by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) to this consultation. We welcome the step forward this consultation represents. However, for the Scam Prevention Framework to deliver on its promise of world leading protections for Australians, Government must plug the holes in its coverage. Government must also be genuinely ambitious in the actions it mandates the ecosystem of SPF businesses take to genuinely detect, prevent and disrupt scams.

Given the intersection of trauma, anxiety and what is ultimately a hard-nosed, contract-based financial product – life insurers have a unique obligation to work with their customers in sensitive, ethical and compassionate ways to ensure that they do not make things worse, and not exploit them. The evidence outlined in this submission however suggests a sector that is continuing to fail to meet this basic standard.

This submission is provided on behalf of Consumer Action Law Centre, Mob Strong Debt Help, Financial Rights Legal Centre, ICAN, Mortgage Stress Victoria and Financial Counselling Australia. We thank the BCCC for the opportunity to provide feedback on its draft guidance on basic bank accounts (BBAs). These accounts are critically important for low- and no-income customers, ensuring access to fair and affordable everyday banking products, which are essential to financial inclusion and stability.

This joint submission is on behalf of Financial Rights Legal Centre (Financial Rights) and Financial Counselling Australia, providing comments and recommendations on Treasury’s Review of the Terrorism and Cyclone Insurance Act 2003.

This submission provides comments and recommendations on one specific area of inquiry: Part 5 Exemptions and specifically Question 33 regarding whether any of the permanent exemptions should be narrowed or updated.

This submission is in response to the public consultation on the exposure draft of the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2025: Limiting the use of genetic information by life insurers. It is the product of wide collaboration, consultation, and consensus between a broad range of stakeholders, including genetic health professionals, researchers, consumer support groups, health and financial services advocacy organisations, professional member organisations and others. This submission should be considered as representative of the views of more than 60 organisations (as well as many additional individuals) whose names are listed on the pages within.

We are thankful for the opportunity to comment on the Australian Financial Complaint’s Authority’s (AFCA’s) draft Approach to the duty to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation – life insurance. We have had the opportunity to read the submission from the Australian Law Council and support the positions expressed therein. This submission provides comments and recommendations on the proposed wording for this Approach.

We welcome the fact that the ATO is putting principles on the table, and particularly that vulnerability is explicitly recognised. However, the framing is still very much about ‘protecting the system from abuse’ rather than a trauma-informed and person-centred approach. There is a big push needed here for stronger recognition of lived experience; that many people want to pay their tax debts but just can’t; and that everybody benefits from a more flexible approach to relief. There is also the broader issue of the overall ATO accessibility, which means people often don’t even get through the door to access hardship support or other services they need from the ATO.

AFCA is to be commended for the substantial improvement to this approach document. We are grateful our previous advice has been incorporated. We have additional suggestions, outlined in this submission order of the updated approach rather than by importance. Many of our comments recommend minor wording changes for completeness, recommend relevant references, or ensuring that client preferences are incorporated. The key substantive recommendation is an expansion of the Life Insurance section, which is notably short.

This submission provides comments and recommendations on the proposed wording for Australian Financial Complaint’s Authority’s (AFCA’s) draft Approach General Insurance Claims Handling Consultation

Industry codes bridge an important gap between governing legislation and the delivery of fair and just outcomes for consumers. In some sectors, this gap is huge, with legislation providing very little in way of detailed obligations or effective consumer protections. Codes in the financial services sector are central to the work that financial counsellors and community lawyers do every day to protect the rights of people experiencing vulnerability and financial hardship. But Codes need to be effective and rigorous in order to have any hope of meeting that purpose. If not, then codes only serve to confuse and obscure consumer protections and regulation.

We support CHOICE’s recommendations to the RBA to proceed with its proposed ban on card surcharges; commit to a post-implementation review within 2-3 years of the proposals coming into effect, with a particular focus on whether cross-subsidisation is occurring between credit and debit card users, and whether further regulatory intervention is necessary to bring down scheme fees; encourage the Federal and State Governments to revisit the taxi industry’s exemption from surcharging rules; and recommend that the Federal Government proactively ban surcharges on cash transactions.

This joint submission calls on the ACCC to require member banks to offer a basic bank account by default to all new eligible customers (the default condition), and safely migrate eligible customers to basic bank accounts unless they opt out.

We hope the proposed changes to the AFCA Rules (Rules) will significantly expand AFCA’s capabilities to investigate and make adverse findings against banks who do not do all they can to stop scam activity, including though mule bank accounts, which has significantly contributed to scammers being so effective in stealing $2.03 billion last year from Australians. At the same time, banks have deliberately pushed people online to undertake all their banking but without implementing the proper safeguards. We expect AFCA will support the proposed changes to the AFCA Rules with clear and easy to understand direction though its operational guidelines, and other public AFCA guidance documents, including AFCA Approach Guides, EDR response guides and fact sheets (Guidance Materials) to assist parties understand and comply with the changes.

Too many Australians dealing with financial services firms have faced gruelling processes, long delays, lack of access to information, inappropriate service and increasingly, scams and fraud. Transparency of breaches and complaints drives firm accountability by allowing the media, policy makers, consumer advocates and the public at large to scrutinise firm behaviour and highlight major issues and trends. It is also very useful to have public records that demonstrate the impact particular laws are having on the sector and its consumers that can be used for research and evaluation purposes to support public policy development and law reform. In this way, transparency deters poor practices and supports better outcomes for consumers. We have long called for the publication of reportable situations and internal dispute resolution data at a firm level. We therefore strongly support ASIC’s proposal to finally shed further light on well-hidden systemic problems in this sector and urge ASIC not to delay publication any further.

Consumer advocates strongly support the proposed reforms to Centrepay. While this submission contains some comments and recommendations about the detail of the new Terms of Use, we strongly endorse all the overarching proposed reforms. That being said, these reforms will only lead to improved customer outcomes if they are robustly enforced, and businesses understand that compliance with the new rules will be closely monitored by Services Australia.

This submission is the product of wide collaboration, consultation, and consensus between a broad range of stakeholders, including genetic health professionals, researchers, consumer support groups, health and financial services advocacy organisations, professional member organisations and others. The submission represents broad community views, beyond the organisations which contributed to the original A-GLIMMER study.