Review of the Australian Product Safety System - Options Paper

At the Ministerial Council on Consumer Affairs (MCCA) Meeting of 22 April 2005, ministers asked the Standing Committee of Officials of Consumer Affairs (SCOCA) to establish specific options for reform of Australia’s consumer product safety system for consideration at their September meeting. This involved the development of three separate papers, providing options in regard to:

• ensuring product safety laws are consistent across Australia and are administered and enforced in a consistent manner (Chapter 1);
• making the product safety system more proactive so as to reduce the incidence of injury to consumers, without placing an undue burden on business (Chapter 2); and
• improving product safety research and information (Chapter 3).

The three papers have been developed by different teams of SCOCA officials and within them an attempt has been made to cover all major reform proposals raised in the MCCA product safety discussion paper Review of the Australian Consumer Product Safety System. Possible broad conclusions that could be drawn from the papers are that:

• there is an opportunity for greater harmonisation of product safety laws and the administration of those laws between jurisdictions;
• a general safety provision (GSP) involves numerous complex policy choices and it remains unclear whether it would be an appropriate change to current arrangements; and
• it appears that product safety information and research could be improved in a cost?effective manner.

The papers make no recommendations for reform but put forward possible options for change. It is important to note that options discussed in the papers are not independent of each other nor do they represent the policy or position of any government.

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