On 15 June 2023, Australia’s chief consumer law regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), announced its Product Safety Priorities for 2023-24.  This is something the ACCC does annually, and it sends a clear signal to the market for the year ahead.  This year, 4 product safety priorities were identified as requiring its attention due to significant product safety risks.

1. Infant sleep products

Since 2001 in Australia, a number of infant deaths per year have been associated with inclined sleep products and other infant sleep products such as cots, inflatable beds and mattresses. In August 2022, the ACCC published a consultation paper, outlining a range of proposed regulatory options aiming to prevent infant injuries and deaths caused by inclined and other products when used for sleep.

Continuing its focus on infant sleep products, the ACCC in 23-24 will implement strategies to prevent injuries and deaths associated with infant sleep products (e.g. baby lounger, cot, folding cot and infant bed), infant inclined products (e.g. beanbag, bouncer, hammock, infant swing/rocker) and sleep aid toys. The ACCC will conduct investigations into sleep products, assess if changes are required for existing standards for folding cots and household cots, and consider developing mandatory safety standards for all infant sleep products.

2. Young children’s product safety

Young childrentoys for children under three, products containing button batteries and toppling furniture.  The ACCC will continue taking regulatory and enforcement actions against businesses that are not compliant with the requirements (see, for example, our recent article on the ACCC’s enforcement actions on products containing button batteries). The ACCC will also work with suppliers to improve the effectiveness of product recalls.

have been an enduring priority for the ACCC. Products that fall under this category include, for example,

3. Product safety online

The ACCC will strengthen its detection and prevention of unsafe product listings online and reduce the safety risks from second-hand goods sold online. Suppliers are encouraged to adopt best practices to prevent and detect the sale of unsafe, non-compliant and banned products online.

4. Sustainability and maintaining product safety 

As consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and seeking more sustainable products, the ACCC introduced this new priority, which, alongside its continued focus on greenwashing (see here for more details) will support consumer confidence in the safety of sustainable products.

There are four key stages for this priority:

• publishing a scoping study on the potential consumer safety hazards associated with lithium-ion batteries and proposing risk mitigation strategies if required;
• considering ways to ensure key safety requirements in standards made under the Australian Consumer Law are sufficiently available to successive owners of products;
• updating recall guidelines to cover the circular economy; and
• considering the development of best practices to reduce safety risks from reused or second-hand goods that are sold online.

What does this mean to you?

There is limited information available at this time, but it is clear that consumer products affecting young children’s (including infants’) safety remain a top focus for the ACCC. Given the heightened regulatory scrutiny on these products, businesses involved in their distribution and sale in Australia should review their compliance practices with respect to the current relevant mandatory safety standards and/or best practices and keep an eye out for new mandatory safety standards being introduced in the near future.

The focus on product safety online may be an opportunity for brands which see unsafe counterfeit or copycat products sold on Australian marketplaces to engage with the ACCC to discuss the dangers such products face.  It’s unclear right now precisely how the ACCC plans to tackle this particular issue, but we will watch this space for any further updates and opportunities.

This post was co-authored by Hazel Pang, Sophie Edgerton and Jessie Buchan, DLA Piper Australia.