The government has introduced legislation to the Federal Parliament that will create a “designated-complaints” mechanism to fast-track serious disputes involving small businesses to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Under the proposed legislation, announced by the Small Business Minister, Julie Collins, and the Assistant Minister for Competition, Andrew Leigh, small-business advocates such as the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman will be given formal powers to submit a complaint about significant and systemic issues with the ACCC for investigation.
Once a complaint is lodged, the ACCC will be required to rank, assess and publicly respond to the complaint within 90 days, during which it must state what further action, if any, will be taken.
The Ombudsman, Bruce Billson, has welcomed the legislation, saying that it provides small and family businesses greater confidence that the ACCC will act promptly and appropriately against anti-competitive and harmful market conduct and practices.
“Vast numbers of small and family businesses every year are being compromised and, in some cases, profoundly damaged by unfair business practices and uncompetitive markets,” Billson said. “Sadly, some go out of business because it takes too long to identify the importance of their issues and the need for the issues to be examined and actioned by the regulator.
“We currently refer cases to the ACCC for its attention to help ensure that unnecessary time does not elapse, which may cause additional harm to occur, before they are investigated and action is taken,” Billson added. “Anything that can help improve the responsiveness of regulators to tackle harmful conduct is a good thing.”
Under the current legislation, the ASBFEO can make referrals to appropriate regulators, where patterns of disputes give to rise to concerns about non-compliance or unlawful conduct. However, there is no requirement for a timely investigation and follow-up of such referrals.
The Ombudsman also noted that ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb previously stated that a number successful compliance and enforcement outcomes have come about from informal referrals by organisations such as ASBFEO.
“We have been championing the creation of a super-complaints mechanism and this legislation establishes a formal mechanism with a formal response to enhance the current informal arrangement,” Billson said. “We are often well-placed to know about emerging problems and we take this responsibility seriously.”
“Small businesses suffer in real time when concerning conduct occurs so obviously a vital test of the new system will be the effectiveness of timely enforcement to combat needless and unnecessary harm,” he added.
Billson also said that he supports proposals to extend the designated-complaints power to other relevant regulators such as the Australian Securities & Investments Commission and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.
