Strengthening post-market regulation of unsafe products in the Australian Consumer Law
Submission Date: 23 October 2026
The Competition and Consumer Committee of the Business Law Section of the Law Council of Australia (the Committee) welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission on the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (Consultation RIS) published by Treasury and the post-market product safety framework under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).
In general, the Committee considers that the current system largely works – recalls are notified, mandatory reports are made and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) uses its investigative and enforcement powers where it considers it appropriate to do so.
The recall framework for voluntary recalls is a notification framework, supplemented/augmented by ACCC guidance, practice and procedure. The ACCC has a recent practice of using a range of boilerplate language for recalls. The Committee supports flexibility in negotiations with the ACCC over the terms of recall notifications (which is not required by the statute) to ensure that suppliers are not disadvantaged if the supplier takes the action suggested by the ACCC and gives the ACCC notice before doing so.
The Committee considers that the mandatory reporting regime should not be expanded to cover reports of injury, exacerbation of pre-existing condition or nearmisses. This would introduce significant administrative burden and complexity and therefore cost. Suppliers would be likely to funnel all customer complaints of injury to the ACCC, without seeking to properly apply the statutory trigger.
The maximum penalties should not be increased to the extent proposed. The proposed maximum penalty for failure to notify recall action or serious injury, illness or death is proposed to go up to $1 million. Failing to notify (or late notification) does not mean appropriate action was not taken. And on the contrary, this may act as a disincentive to commencing a recall (taking the step which triggers the action).
Finally, the Committee also considers that wherever possible, overlapping regimes for specific product types (for example, therapeutic goods, food, motor vehicles, electrical products) should avoid duplication and overregulation.
The Committee's response to the focus questions is set out in this submission. A detailed response to the 32 sub-questions is set out in Attachment 1.
Last Updated on 30/10/2026
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