What I’d really like to see raised as a starting point for Australian consumers from many concerned stakeholders (not just Choice), is that any penalties under existing legislative frameworks are not only enforced more often, but are increased to a meaningful level. Without the above changes the legislative framework is meaningless.
As I stated in another post if I am a business owner who makes $500,000 profit by doing the wrong thing (false advertising, dodgy products, etc), and the legislative body that covers my business catches me and fines me $10,000 which of the following do you think applies?
1 - I realise the error of my ways, pay my fine and forever more abide by the law, never to rip off a consumer again.
2 - I apologise to the powers that be, pay my fine and promise to amend my business culture and behaviour. I then go home to giggle and count the remaining $490,000 profit I made by my transgressions, immediately looking into how to make my next $500,000 but without getting caught!
If the penalties for bad behaviour were true penalties, they would scale in the order of magnitude for the monies made by the venture. For an instance like the above, the penalty could be 25% of the profit made ($100,00) plus the company being forced to refund all monies gained through the malpractice. This would mean a net loss of $100,000 to the business and no loss to their customers (the refunds being enforceable prior to the fine). Yes this would mean the business may become insolvent and forced to close, but you have to ask yourself should a business be allowed to operate if they are willing to rip off customers to make a profit? I know it worked for our banks that just happen to be guaranteed by the taxpayer (still no-one really held to account there), but no business should be allowed to operate in that way.
I know, I live in fairyland lol - it’s a nice place to be, you really should visit :). With our halls of parliament the domain of cashed up lobbyists the above is a pipe dream never to be fulfilled. These types of changes would need politicians of both courage and conviction, both extinct qualities in the corridors of Canberra. If you could somehow frame it in a way that convinced them there were votes in it for the next election you might actually get them to listen for a moment, but only until the next cashed up lobbyist waves some currency under their party treasurer’s nose lol
