CHOICE has been shouting from the rooftops about product safety for over 60 years.
It was one of the first campaigns I worked on when I joined the organisation almost seven years ago and, in many ways, it has been the most frustrating. There’s a simple solution, but it continues to sit on the shelf – a general safety provision that would prevent companies selling unsafe products in the first place.
In the 60s, CHOICE tested the flammability of children’s nightwear by placing nine nighties on a fireproof dummy, lighting each and recording the results. “In 90 seconds the dummy was enveloped in flames… a couple of minutes later the dummy was stained black,” read the May magazine of that year.
CHOICE lobbied state and federal governments about the issue, writing: “How many more children have to be burnt to death before governments will legislate to force manufacturers to label clothing, especially children’s nightwear, as to whether or not it is inflammable?”
By the 70s, protections were finally brought in and, to this day, mandatory sleepwear standards continue to impose safety obligations on suppliers.
But the battle is still far from over. Just two years ago a distraught mother was left wondering why her child had to be burned in order for a product to be recalled.
Daniella Jacobs-Herd was only 8 years old when her hoodie from Temu caught fire.
Daniella suffered burns to 13% of her body, including her face, her arm and her chest. The hoodie wasn’t compliant with those mandatory safety standards. And even after it was clear the hoodie was dangerous, it took four months for the product to be recalled.
Surely, we can do better than this as a country?
Hard-fought consumer protections are not set-and-forget. They can be undermined and undone, seemingly overnight. The rise of online marketplaces exploiting gaps in the law to flood the market with unsafe and non-compliant products has proven this.
A few months after this incident, a CHOICE test found that all 15 products we bought from Temu failed to meet at least one requirement of Australia’s mandatory button battery standards. Those mandatory standards took the deaths of three children, dozens of serious injuries, and many years to be introduced. A major victory, but at a terrible cost.
And yet, people continue to be hurt. New CHOICE research shows that 6% of people who purchased products online experienced harm, like injuries and damage to property, in the last two years. Surely, we can do better than this as a country?
It was heartening to see the ACCC announce court proceedings against Amazon last week for allegedly controlling and shipping backpacks that did not comply with button battery mandatory standards. This will put a grey and untested area of the law to the test for the first time. It’s likely to delve into the level of control Amazon has over unsafe products and whether it can be held accountable, or whether responsibility will continue to be shifted to third-party suppliers with little consequence.
Even if the ACCC is successful in this case, it’s still part of a piecemeal approach, with the regulator constantly trying to put out fires as they pop up. Just yesterday, the ACCC issued takedown requests to Amazon, eBay, Kogan and Fruugo for toys and games containing potentially deadly small magnets – they’re banned because they can cause catastrophic internal injuries if swallowed.
The government can deal with this problem, the whole problem, right now. We don’t need to wait
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The government can deal with this problem, the whole problem, right now. We don’t need to wait.
That’s why today we’ve made our second-ever super complaint today about product safety. We’re urging the ACCC to do more to enforce and test the laws we have, but we also need the government to strengthen consumer protections and close the loopholes that allow online marketplaces to get away with selling unsafe products at a staggering scale.
We hear a lot of opposition about new laws that would make consumers safer – that the cost and regulatory burden is just too high. But we rarely hear about the cost and burden of continuing the way that we are. Of playing a game of whack-a-mole with a patchwork of complicated regulations. It shouldn’t take serious injuries or even death for just a small part of the problem to be addressed.
If the burden is not on the companies that cause, and profit from, these problems, it is on consumers. And that burden is far too heavy to bear.
For more than 60 years, CHOICE has been fighting the good fight for Australian consumers.
In the past year alone we've uncovered systemic issues with sunscreens, investigated shonky supermarket pricing, fought for stronger scam protections and helped make complex energy pricing fairer and clearer.
CHOICE is here to provide unbiased advice and independent testing in our world-class labs. We buy the products we test, just like you do, and our expert reviews are influence free. We’re here to help you choose smarter. Hopefully you’ll also save some money along the way.
Thanks to CHOICE, you’ll never be alone when a business treats you unfairly. You can support our work by joining or donating to our cause.
