The ACCC has announced the actions it will take in response to a CHOICE super complaint that exposed the shocking scale of unsafe products being sold online. The announcement confirms that law reform is needed to protect consumers and hold businesses accountable.
While deciding that investigating the concerning products CHOICE identified would be “challenging” due to gaps in the law, the ACCC confirmed that it will advocate for new general safety protections in response – including developing options for reform.
Andy Kelly, director of consumer impact at CHOICE says: “It’s great that the ACCC will be advocating for general safety protections to prevent the sale of unsafe products on online marketplaces.”
“It’s extremely disappointing that we have a situation right now where our current laws are so weak that they don’t allow the regulator to act to protect people from clearly unsafe products.”
CHOICE’s complaint about unsafe products being sold in Australia
We bought and tested this Temu toy teether and found it posed a choking hazard from pull-strings that could get stuck in a baby’s throat.
In June 2026, CHOICE submitted a designated complaint to the ACCC raising concerns that unsafe, banned, prohibited and dangerous goods are reaching Australian consumers through online marketplaces, at scale.
We identified dozens of unsafe products available for sale on online marketplaces like Amazon, AliExpress, Temu, Shein and Ebay. These included products marketed for children under the age of 3, including rattles, teethers and whistles.
We highlighted that the current product safety regime contains gaps, in particular in relation to online marketplaces which often act as intermediaries between sellers and buyers and are not classed as suppliers under existing Australian Consumer Law.
The complaint also noted that Australia does not have a general law that prevents the sale of unsafe products.
The federal government has announced that the Treasury will lead work to strengthen the product safety framework, including by improving mandatory injury reporting, strengthening penalties, and ensuring online marketplaces are subject to mandatory obligations.
“Australian consumers should be able to trust that products they purchase are safe, including when they buy goods online. We currently face challenges where sellers are based overseas or the online marketplace is not the direct supplier, making it difficult to prevent unsafe products sold through online marketplaces from reaching consumers,” ACCC Commissioner Luke Woodward said.
“We believe that many of the issues raised in the designated complaint are best addressed through regulatory reforms, including through clear obligations on online marketplaces.
“We also support exploring options for new general safety protections relating to the safety of all consumer goods to further strengthen the product safety framework,” Mr Woodward said.
We urge the government to expedite these critical reforms to protect consumers from harmful products found on online marketplaces
Andrew Kelly, CHOICE director of consumer impact
Kelly says that it is crucial we get these reforms right, and soon, in order to prevent the flood of unsafe products into Australia.
“It’s great that the ACCC will develop options for these landmark reforms, and that Consumer Ministers have committed to prioritise introducing general safety protections since we made the complaint, but we still don’t have a timeline for when general safety protections will be implemented.”
“We urge the government to expedite these critical reforms to protect consumers from harmful products found on online marketplaces,” he says.
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.
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