Every year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) identifies key areas to minimise and raise awareness of the risks posed by unsafe consumer goods.
Last week, ACCC announced the 2023-24 Product Safety Priorities
- Young children’s product safety
Compliance, enforcement, and education initiatives, focusing on consumer products, such as sleep aids, toys for children under 3 (including wooden toys, i.e. rattles and teethers), products containing button batteries and toppling furniture. - Infant sleep products
Implementing strategies to prevent injuries and deaths associated with infant sleep products (including inclined products). - Product safety online
Strengthening product safety online including the use of technology by online marketplaces to detect and prevent unsafe product listings online, and best practices to reduce safety risks from second-hand goods sold online. - Sustainability and maintaining product safety
Supporting Australia’s transition to a sustainable economy including through education and awareness raising.
ACCC will focus on ensuring it does not perform its product safety functions in a way that creates unnecessary barriers to industry or government pursuing environmental sustainability objectives and supporting consumer confidence in safety of products needed for Australia’s circular economy.
- Reporting on ACCC scoping study of potential consumer safety hazards with lithium-ion batteries, proposing risk mitigation strategies if required – potentially including improvements to the regulatory framework to support household transition to renewables.
- Updating recall guidelines to cover the circular economy.
- Considering the development of best practices to reduce safety risks from reused or second-hand goods sold online.
