CONSUMER group Choice has launched a campaign in response to rising prices.
As prices continue to soar across the economy, especially fuel, consumer group Choice is launching a new campaign calling on the Federal Government to ban price gouging whenever and wherever it happens.
Choice head of policy, Morgan Campbell said, with global disruptions causing prices to skyrocket, now is the time for a national, economy-wide price gouging ban.
“Price gouging should be illegal whenever and wherever it happens.
“We’re really glad the Government has doubled the penalties for false and misleading conduct and cartel conduct, but we still don’t have a law that specifically bans price gouging.
“At the moment, we have a law that says it’s illegal to use your market power to keep prices artificially low, but no law that says it’s illegal to use that same market power to keep prices artificially high. That doesn’t add up.”
“This won’t be the last time we see disruption and sudden price hikes. We need new price gouging protections for the situation we’re in right now, but also for the next one and the one after that.”
Last week, the Federal Parliament passed laws doubling the penalties for a range of conduct that is already illegal, including false or misleading conduct and cartel behaviour under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
These laws are important, Choice says, but they are not specifically about price gouging.
Misleading conduct is actually about what a business has said about their prices, not the price itself, and cartel conduct relies on proving collusion between businesses,” Choice said.
Neither of those laws look at the price itself and determine if it is fair and reasonable.
In February 2024, the Australian Council of Trade Unions published an 80-page report, written by former ACCC Chair Allan Fels, calling for a price gouging ban,.
The European Union already has a law banning excessive prices, and more than half the states of America have some sort of law banning price gouging during times of emergency or market disruption.
The Government ran a consultation process on price gouging last year which focused exclusively on supermarkets, despite warnings from CHOICE that all sectors of the economy should be covered by a ban.
Read Choice’s 2025 submission on price gouging HERE.
