AUSTRALIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Greg Williams, Alexandra Rose and Caitlin Sheehy, Clayton Utz
Clayton Utz Level 15 1 Bligh Street Sydney New South Wales 2000 Australia
Tel: +61 2 9353 4000 Fax: +61 2 8220 6700 Email: gwilliams@claytonutz.com Web: www.claytonutz.com
1. Product Safety 1.1 Product Safety Legal Framework Australian Consumer Law
• the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Act 1994 (Cth) and the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 (Cth); • the Gene Technology Act 2000 (Cth); and • the Industrial Chemicals Act 2019 (Cth). In each case, these regimes do not prevent the prod - ucts in question from being subject to the Australian Consumer Law, subject to certain limited carve-outs. In addition to these statutory obligations, product manufacturers and suppliers are subject to obliga - tions under common law. Specifically, persons who are injured by a product may have a right to sue the supplier of the product in negligence (as well as under statutory causes of action created by the Australian Consumer Law), and an analysis of a supplier’s duty to users of its product in negligence will often be impor - tant in assessing the appropriate response to a poten - tial product safety risk. 1.2 Regulatory Authorities for Product Safety Federal The principal Australian product safety regulator is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which is responsible for administering the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), includ - ing the Australian Consumer Law. The ACCC has regulatory, investigatory and prosecutorial powers granted to it under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. In relation to product safety, those powers include the power to require the production of docu - ments or the provision of information, including the power to examine witnesses and to enter premises,
The principal law governing product safety in Australia is the Australian Consumer Law, which codifies a sin - gle set of consumer protection laws for the whole of Australia, including (but not limited to) laws relating to product safety and product liability. The Australian Consumer Law is Schedule 2 to the federal Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). However, its operation across Australia also depends on state and territory laws, which provide that it has effect as a law of each Australian state and territory. Other Laws In addition to the Australian Consumer Law, there are a number of specific types of products that have their own safety regimes. By way of example, gas and electrical safety continues to be regulated at a state and territory level, so that each Australian jurisdiction has its own gas and electrical safety legislation, which applies to gas and electrical appliances. Other areas – such as therapeutic goods (ie, medicines and medical devices), food, agricultural and veterinary products, genetically modified organisms, and industrial chemi - cals (including cosmetics) – have their own federal safety regimes, pursuant to: • the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (Cth); • the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code;
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