CHOICE welcomes govt's plan for competition reform

Consumer group CHOICE has welcomed the federal government’s decision to support the majority of the recommendations of the Harper Review into reforms to open data and Australia’s competition policy.

CHOICE Head of Media Tom Godfrey said the reforms stand to usher in a new era of open data in Australia that will enable consumers to make more informed choices.

“The Harper Review put forward a suite of ambitious recommendations that have the potential to create a lot of benefits for Australians and the government’s response has unlocked some of that potential,” he said.

Accepted recommendations include abolishing restrictions on parallel imports to address the rise of e-commerce, the deregulation of retail trading hours and opening up the human services sector — including health and welfare — to private competition.

In total the government has accepted 44 of the 56 recommendations in whole or in part and has remained open to adopting most of the others following further consultation.

Godfrey said many of the recommendations have the potential to provide significant benefits for consumers.

“It is great to see the government commit to taking action on so many of these recommendations — in particular, we welcome the news that the Productivity Commission will be tasked with reviewing options for increasing consumers’ access to their own data,” he said.

“We also welcome the endorsement of consumers’ rights to circumvent geoblocking in order to access goods and services from overseas at fair prices. Where Australians are blocked from overseas sites or charged a higher price, they should be able to use services like VPNs to get around these blocks.”

But he said CHOICE has reservations about the recommendation regarding human services.

“While the government supports the proposal to put user choice at the heart of service delivery, we think consumer outcomes are the first consideration. We would urge caution around the recommendation that choice and competition principles be adopted for human services,” he said.

“User choice by itself may not be able to deliver what’s needed for some consumers, particularly those in rural areas and those with complex needs. Competition should be seen as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.”

Image courtesy of opensource.com under CC