Reports - Consumer Action Law Centre

Our impact 2023-24: Fighting for a fairer marketplace in a cost-of-living crisis

We are delighted to publish our Impact Report 2023-24 which highlights what we’ve been doing over the past year working alongside consumers, national advocates and cross-sector stakeholders. The co...

REPORT: Money Yarns, Stronger Futures

Consumer Action Law Centre and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service are thrilled to be jointly publishing our new report today Money Yarns, Stronger Futures. We would like to sincerely thank all...

REPORT Energy Assistance Report 4th Edition: Keeping the Lights On

The fourth edition of Consumer Action’s Energy Assistance Report outlines the growing trends of people facing energy hardship; barriers to accessing hardship assistance; and priority areas for targete...

REPORT: At the front line of the cost-of-living crisis

Interest rates have gone up thirteen times since May 2022. Inflation calculators, which look at purchasing power over time, show that since 2022 there has been a ten percent decrease in the purchasing...

REPORT: Our Impact 2022-23 fighting for a fairer marketplace especially for those needing help

We are delighted to publish our Impact Report 2022-23 which highlights our organisation’s achievements over the past year working for and with the people we help. Read about the many successes we h...

ANALYSIS: Addressing and Preventing Legal Need

Consumer Action seeks to be a reflective, impact-driven organisation that can adjust and refine our services to meet legal need. We have done significant work to conduct evaluations of our existing se...

Energy Assistance Report 3rd Edition

Understanding the experience of Victorians dealing with energy hardship Access to affordable, reliable energy is one of the key challenges facing governments, the energy sector, and consumers in 20...

Our Impact 2021-22: It’s the change we are making, helping people fight the powerful, advocating for a fairer Australia

Today we are delighted to publish our Impact Report 2021-22 which highlights our organisation’s achievements over the past year working for and with the people we help. Read about the many successe...

Our Policy and Campaign Priorities for 2022-23

Consumer Action has revealed its Policy and Campaign Priorities for 2022-23 with a refreshed focus on making the marketplace for consumers fairer. Director of Policy and Campaigns Tania Clarke said...

An evaluation of our Consumer Advice Service

The Consumer Advice Service (“CAS”or“the service”) is a free telephone legal advice service run by Consumer Action Law Centre(“Consumer Action”) for people living in Victoria. Lawyers delivering th...

Evaluation of Work Advice Line 2021 Report Cover

Evaluation of Consumer Action’s Worker Advice Service

The Worker Advice Service plays a central role in Consumer Action’s theory of change. The service aims to provide practical legal advice to Victorian community workers so that they in turn can provide...

Our Impact 2020-21: Improving laws, fighting shonky businesses, helping people

Today we are delighted to publish our Impact Report 2020-21 which highlights Consumer Action’s achievements over the past year. Despite the challenges of another year of working much of it from hom...

Energy Assistance Report: Second Edition

This is Consumer Action Law Centre’s (Consumer Action) second Energy Assistance Report, following our previous report published in July 2019. The original report explored whether the introduction o...

Consumer issues in Victorian Aboriginal communities during 2020

This report has collated data, community intelligence, and case studies to answer the following questions: 1. What consumer, credit and debt issues are impacting Victorian Aboriginal communities?...

Report: Our response to the New Energy Tech Consumer Code

The New Energy Tech Consumer Code (NET Code) is a voluntary industry code of conduct, which sets practice standards for the sale of New Energy Technology (NET) products, systems, and services by retai...

Debt Management: Quantum Market Research

This report by Quantum Market Research on debt management firms is based on its AustraliaNOW weekly survey of attitudes and behaviour during COVID-19. A total of 2,005 people representative of age,...

‘Bills here, bills there’: Report on the lived experience of Victorian energy reform

This report is a deep dive into how energy reforms of recent years are impacting Victorians. Taking a qualitative approach, we draw on interviews and case studies to examine how recent reforms are hel...

Report: The Trouble with Telcos Stories from 2020

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Impact Report 2019-2020

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Report: Regulator Watch

Consumer Action Law Centre has released its second edition of Regulator Watch: The enforcement performance of Australia’s consumer protection regulators. In 2013, Consumer Action published the first e...

Consumer Issues in Victorian Aboriginal Communities: Integrated Practice Project Report 2020

‘Consumer issues in Victorian Aboriginal communities’ reports findings from Consumer Action Law Centre’s (Consumer Action) and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s (VALS) Integrated Practice proje...

The Debt Trap: How payday lending is costing Australians

The Debt Trap: How payday lending is costing Australians projected that the gross amount of payday loans undertaken in Australia will reach a staggering 1.7 billion by the end of 2019. It also found t...

Integrated Practice Project: 2019 Mid-Year Report

Recognising that we need to take a coordinated approach to addressing the civil needs of Victorian Aboriginal communities, Consumer Action Law Centre and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service teamed...

Who is making Australians bankrupt?

One of Australia’s largest debt collectors – Lion Finance (a subsidiary of ASX-listed Collection House Ltd) – turns to bankruptcy procedures to collect consumer debts far more often than its rivals, a...

Energy Assistance Report: tracking how Victoria’s changing energy policies are impacting households in the state

Consumer Action's new landmark report shows that the Victorian Government's new policies are reducing energy disconnections, but energy companies are still falling short addressing consumer vulnerabil...

Sunny Side Up: Strengthening the consumer protection regime for solar panels in Victoria

Reliable, affordable, renewable energy has helped many Australians take back control of their power prices. Yet as the solar industry booms, consumer protection has not kept up. More needs to be done...

A tough nut to crack

Trialling new partnerships and campaign methods to reach tough audiences Consumer advocates have long been concerned about the impact of payday loans on Australians. The industry spends millions of d...

Lemon-Aid

It is not always easy for people to obtain a refund or replacement when they purchase a faulty ‘lemon’ product. The current Australian consumer guarantee regime is not well equipped to deal with the u...

Are we there yet? (the mysterious case of the vanishing SACC Bill)

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Dirty Leads: consumer protection in online lead generation

Online marketing, lead generation and cold-calling have been scrutinised in a new report from Consumer Action Law Centre. The report, entitled Dirty Leads: consumer protection in online lead gener...

Denied – Levelling the playing field to make insurance fair

There is a big ‘fairness’ problem in insurance. People often make insurance claims when they are at a low ebb. They can face shocking outcomes and no appropriate recourse under current laws. This repo...

Knock it off

Download the full report here [PDF] https://youtu.be/j43zE3HBoFk...

People who help people

'People who help people' provides practical steps consumer advocates and financial counsellors can take to demonstrate their impact and better influence public debate. Consumer advocates and financ...

Fringe dwellings – the vendor finance and rent-to-buy housing black market: Report

Vendor finance and rent-to-buy schemes promise the Australian dream of owning your own home—without a bank loan. However, these deals typically do not result in successful homeownership and in some...

Power Transformed

The rapid development of new technology in electricity supply is disrupting the traditional means of delivery of this essential service. As in other sectors, the consumer is at the heart of these chan...

Junk merchants fleecing millions from unknowing Australians

Unknowing Australians could be paying millions of dollars for junk insurance according to a new report from Consumer Action Law Centre. The ‘Junk Merchants’ report says that Consumer Credit (CCI) a...

FIX IT! How to fix the energy market rule making process to improve competition and consumer outcomes

The National Energy Retail Rules (NERR) impose minimum requirements that apply to terms and conditions of energy retail contracts. For market retail contracts, energy retailers are required to notify...

Evaluating Consumer Action’s consumer legal advice service

Consumer Action uses various strategies to improve the lives of Victorian consumers and advance fairness in the marketplace, including undertaking public interest litigation, publishing legal informat...

The real stories of Victorians forced to choose to heat, or eat

Victorians have shared their stories of energy disconnection as part of research by RMIT for Consumer Action Law Centre’s ‘Heat or Eat’ report released today. The report details six unique stories...

“Almost completely worthless” – used car warranties catching out countless Australians

Bought a second hand car? There’s a good chance you’ve been offered an extended warranty. A Consumer Action investigation has found that warranty providers can avoid paying many if not most claims pur...

Report: A quick fix? Credit repair in Australia Summary of findings

Consumer Action is pleased to be able to publish a summary of a Melbourne Law School report into credit repair, which involved a review of Consumer Action’s casework and interviews with Consumer Actio...

Report: Smart Moves for a Smart Market

Smart Moves for a Smart Market: Simple steps to ensure consumer protections keep pace with innovation in a hi-tech energy market takes an in-depth look at the emerging demand-side energy market, inclu...

Report: Problems with Payment

As winter energy bills begin landing in letterboxes, a new report from the Consumer Action has identified fundamental flaws in the way energy retailers identify and assist struggling customers. Proble...

Report: Barriers to Accessing Utility Relief Grants

Increasing electricity prices have had a significant impact on the consumers that contact Consumer Action for assistance—consumers experiencing debt issues and those with some of the lowest incomes in...

Policy report: Winners and Losers – the impact of energy concession caps on low-income Victorians

A new report from Consumer Action Law Centre and the Victorian Council of Social Service, Winners and Losers: the impact of energy concession caps on low-income Victorians, finds new restrictions on V...

Report: The Hidden Cost of ‘Rent to Own’

We’ve all seen adverts promoting ‘Rent to Buy’ or ‘Rent to Own’ arrangements, where customers rent a product for a number of years before being given the option to buy or keep that product, but our la...

Time to end the funeral insurance rip-off: a Consumer Strategy for a fairer deal

Consumers are increasingly keen to plan financially for all significant life events, including the first thing that happens when they die—their funeral. This means there is now a market for funeral pl...

Report: ‘Like juggling 27 chainsaws’: Understanding the experience of default judgment debtors in Victoria

A new report, prepared for the Consumer Action Law Centre by Dr Eve Bodsworth of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, explores the experiences of people who have received ‘default judgments’ for debt-relat...

Report: Encouraging Good Practice in Measuring Effectiveness in the Legal Service Sector

Encouraging Good Practice in Measuring Effectiveness in the Legal Service Sector by Dr Liz Curran of ANU Legal Workshop (and commissioned by the Consumer Action Law Centre and the Footscray Community...

Fresh start or false hope: Are debt agreement administrators overstating their abilities?

A debt agreement, regulated by the Bankruptcy Act, is an option available to a debtor as a way of dealing with unmanageable debt. Debt agreements typically involve a compromise with creditors on the t...

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