Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (13:11): Labor has always been on the side of consumers. Labor introduced the Trade Practices Act in 1974 and Labor created the new Australian Consumer Law, the ACL, in 2010. It was a Labor federal government which, in negotiating the 2009 intergovernmental agreement on Australia's consumer protection arrangements—those which preceded the Australian Consumer Law—built in a requirement that the new laws be reviewed within seven years. It is some of the recommendations of that review that the Treasury Laws Amendment (Australian Consumer Law Review) Bill 2018 seeks to implement. The ACL review was commissioned in 2015. It issued an interim report in December 2016 and submitted its final report to federal, state and territory consumer affairs ministers in March 2017. When these ministers met for their annual meeting in August 2017, they agreed on 15 recommendations for implementation, while referring a number of other recommendations for further review, consultation or policy work. Labor supports this bill because it clarifies, corrects and strengthens Australia's consumer protection and product safety regime. The measures in this bill have been agreed by state and territory consumer affairs ministers, who were consulted extensively both through the ACL review process and in an exposure draft. But the measures do not fully implement all the provisions agreed by the government with the states. Of the 15 recommendations agreed to, just 10½ are in this bill. These measures include expanding follow-on provisions, extending unconscionable conduct protections to publicly listed companies, amending the definition of unsolicited services with regard to false billing services, enhancing price transparency in online shopping, strengthening the powers of the ACCC to obtain information about product safety, addressing unfair contracts, allowing third parties to give effect to a community services order under the ACL and clarifying the scope of the exemption from the consumer guarantees for the transport or storage of goods where those goods are damaged or lost in transit. These measures also address terminology that is inconsistent with other consumer protection provisions in the ASIC Act. They amend the ASIC Act to clarify that all ACL related consumer protections that already apply to financial services also apply to financial products. The government make the right noises rolling around consumer reforms that are already in train, but, in the end, they always squib it. We've seen the government drag their feet with the payday lending reforms. They have been silent on honey laundering. We know that they voted against the banking royal commission 26 times. On the other hand, Labor will always work to improve outcomes for Australian consumers with or without the government.