Each year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) identifies product safety priorities to focus its work on the highest priority risks facing Australian consumers and to raise public awareness. Last month, ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb introduced the ACCC’s five key areas of focus for 2024-25 at the National Consumer Congress in Sydney.
Young children’s product safety
Product safety issues for young children continue to be a primary focus of the ACCC. This priority now encompasses infant sleep products, which was formerly a separate product safety priority and has been a key focus for the ACCC since 2019.
This year, the ACCC will focus on nursery products for young children, such as infant sleep products, baby bottle self-feeding devices and toppling furniture. In particular, the ACCC will target emerging risks such as baby bottle self-feeding devices, which can pose a choking risk and have been the subject of a number of safety warnings and recalls in other countries.
The ACCC will target product safety issues in nursery products by:
- monitoring emerging safety issues and taking regulatory and enforcement action where appropriate;
- continuing consumer awareness activities to facilitate knowledge of the safety risks and hazards presented by these products; and
- raising awareness of and encouraging compliance with new standards for topping furniture and proposed standards for infant sleep products.
Product safety online
Strengthening product safety online is a longstanding priority of the ACCC. It is a particular challenge in relation to goods which are manufactured overseas and sold online to Australian consumers.
The ACCC will focus on the detection and prevention of unsafe product listings online, particularly those sold directly to consumers from an overseas seller. The ACCC aims to achieve this through:
- collaborating with domestic and international regulators to identify and address common product safety risks;
- targeted engagement with online marketplaces aiming to reduce the prevalence of unsafe product listings and raise consumer awareness of best practices to reduce the safety risks from goods sold online; and
- refining the Product Safety Pledge to improve product safety outcomes for consumers.
Sustainability and maintaining product safety
Another product safety priority is sustainability and maintaining product safety. The ACCC continues to support Australia’s transition to net-zero economy by focusing on education and raising awareness of safety issues in sustainable products.
This year, the ACCC will:
- focus on performing its product safety functions without creating unnecessary barriers to the environmental sustainability objectives of industry or government;
- support consumer confidence in the safety of safety of sustainable products; and
- develop guidance to raise awareness of the product safety issues involved in reused or second-hand goods online.
The issue of second hand goods is an interesting area given the current focus of the Australian Consumer Law on new goods rather than those acquired second hand or by auction.
The ACCC will also continue to focus on the safety risks posed by lithium-ion batteries and electrical products where there have been a range of incidents and ongoing recalls. Last year, to raise awareness of these issues, the ACCC published a lithium-ion batteries and consumer product safety report and launched a lithium-ion battery consumer education and awareness campaign. This year, the ACCC will conduct a review of electrical safety regulatory framework for household electrical consumer products in collaboration with other government agencies to improve product safety and ensure the current regulatory regime is fit for purpose, efficient and effective. The ACCC is expected to present a reform action plan to government later this year.
As before, the ACCC has continued to flag potential law reform seeking a general safety provision that prohibits the sale of unsafe goods.
Emerging technology and product safety
This year the ACCC added a new product safety priority for safety issues relating to emerging technology. This is in response to the rapid development of new technology in consumer products which has presented new risks to consumers.
The ACCC will focus on product safety risks associated with the use of emerging technology in consumer products by:
- seeking to better understand the risks by collaborating with domestic and international regulators;
- providing input into key cross government forums on potential product safety risks of emerging technology; and
- reviewing the product safety legislative framework to assess how it applies to safety hazards to support safe and responsible practices when using emerging technology.
Improving product safety data
The ACCC's fifth and final product safety priority is improving product safety data. This reflects the growing role of data across all other safety priorities.
The ACCC will focus on improving product safety data to enhance its capability to quickly and effectively identify emerging product safety issues and address these problems before they become serious hazards.
The ACCC will take three key actions to improve product safety data:
- working in partnership with Australian data experts to explore new data sources;
- education and enforcement of mandatory reporting requirements and updating of associated guidelines to assist suppliers to better understand their compliance obligations; and
- improvement of internal systems and reporting to support efficient, data driven decision making.
The latest on button batteries
The ACCC also continues to focus its enforcement action on button batteries following the introduction of the world’s first mandatory button battery safety standards in in June 2022. The ACCC has put a national surveillance program in place and taken significant enforcement action in response to alleged non-compliance with button battery standards. The ACCC has clearly stated that any grace period is over and with the standards now having been in place for two years, companies must be complying.