LAW5347 Consumer policy and regulation

Consumer protection legislation is well established in Australia, but moves towards self-regulation in the private sector, and corporatisation and privatisation in the public sector have underlined the importance of establishing and monitoring corporate accountability and compliance with consumer protection obligations. This unit will examine state and federal legislative consumer protection mechanisms; the development, operation and monitoring of self-regulatory and industry-based mechanisms such as licence and contract conditions, Codes of Practice, Customer Charters and Standards; the role of industry regulators; dispute resolution regimes such as industry-based Ombudsman schemes; and compliance, enforcement and monitoring mechanisms. There will also be consideration of the influence of, and importance of achieving compliance with, global consumer protection obligations, together with specific issues raised by new information technologies.c