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External News, and Useful Links

United Nations guidelines for consumer protection

The United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP) are “a valuable set of principles for setting out the main characteristics of effective consumer protection legislation, enforcement institutions and redress systems and for assisting interested Member States in formulating and enforcing domestic and regional laws, rules and regulations that are suitable to their own economic and social and environmental circumstances, as well as promoting international enforcement cooperation among Member States and encouraging the sharing of experiences in consumer protection.”

Dark commercial patterns

There is mounting concern that dark commercial patterns may cause substantial consumer detriment. These practices are commonly found in online user interfaces and steer, deceive, coerce, or manipulate consumers into making choices that often are not in their best interests. This report proposes a working definition of dark commercial patterns, sets out evidence of their prevalence, effectiveness and harms, and identifies possible policy and enforcement responses to assist consumer policy makers and authorities in addressing them. It also documents possible approaches that consumers and businesses may take to mitigate dark commercial patterns.

Australia’s ‘doNation Building’ project - Can Australia get clarity on the role of charities?

Governments are better suited than charities to alleviate poverty, but can never replace – and must better support – the authentic community-building these organisations provide, Robin Brown writes.

The peculiar challenges of regulating professionals

Current problems with cosmetic surgery highlight the challenges of regulating professionals. The peculiar idea that they must only act in the interest of their client perhaps compromises the effectiveness of regulators. The identification of professions is an ancient practice, and licensing laws have been in place for many centuries. Adam Smith doubted the value of licensing – they might well lead to a “conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”. There is a potential for regulatory capture from the development of communities of interest.

Exploitation and fairness

Most of us would see exploiting another person’s weakness for personal gain as morally wrong. But it is not when fully informed opponents enter a competitive game with fair rules. It’s entirely fair to exploit your tennis opponent’s weak backhand. A politician exploiting the poor policy analysis of another is entirely fair.
What about the competitive “game”, the market system, that is our main extractor and distributor of the world’s resources and advancer of our living standards?

Can citizen assemblies tackle Trumpification? How giving power to the people as accidental politicians could help

Countering the rise of populist politics means governments must be more representative of their citizens, Robin Brown writes.

Regulation and Civilisation – a brief overview

This brief overview suggests that good rules have been important in improving human affairs and saving humanity from itself over the centuries. But our regulatory skill might be challenged by possible existential threats we are now facing, or soon will be.

Health professionals and complementary therapeutic services and goods – what might consumers reasonably expect?

Services and goods provided for therapeutic or health maintenance purposes can be seen as falling into one of five categories – those for which there is:

Good evidence of efficacy
Limited evidence of efficacy
No evidence of efficacy
Evidence of inefficacy
Evidence of risk to health

The Advertising of Therapeutic Goods and Services and its regulation

Is the multi-regulator model for Australian Consumer Law effective or useless in maintaining and/or enforcing standards for advertising health, medical or therapeutic goods and services?

Proposed regulatory model for therapeutic goods and services claims

In Australia all advertisements and generic information provided about Therapeutic Goods directed to the public must comply with provisions of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990 and the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code (TGAC).

Wealth of Nations or Why Lots of Tax can be Really, Really Good

There seems to be a tendency these days to suggest that a nation’s engine of wealth generation is business and only business. The current government seems to be arguing that the only way to really grow our wealth is for it, government, to be doing less and less and for the resources it uses to be transferred to business.

Making Energy Markets Work for Consumers in Australia

This paper is a very broad overview of arrangements in Australia designed to protect consumers generally and individually and advance their interest in respect of energy services.

A Global Competition Policy: A Role for Civil Society?

t is a truism these days to note that nation states exist within an international system where they are interdependent legally, economically, socially and politically. For example trading links between states require agreed standards in relation to the legality of contracts, the convertibility of currencies, safe production and distribution environments and political stability.

When Spiders Unite They Can Tie Down a Lion: A view of the Australian Consumer Movement into the 1990s from the middle of the web

The turn of the century finds most people in the consumer movement and business community speaking the same language. More than that, it is now commonplace for consumer activists and business people to work cooperatively, often with little or no government involvement, to solve problems of market failure and to get the best results for consumers.