The Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Bill (No 2) 2010 (ACL Bill) was last week introduced into Parliament as part of the second tranche of the new Australian Consumer Law.

The ACL Bill creates a national consumer product safety law for consumer goods and product related services. These laws will replace the current product safety provisions in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA) and equivalent provisions in State and Territory Fair Trading Acts.

If passed, the requirement to report serious product incidents to the Commonwealth Minister, and the greater product safety investigation and powers given to the ACCC, will necessitate that suppliers are more proactive in undertaking voluntary product recalls, particularly in cases where they become aware of a death or serious injury incident in the ordinary course of business.In his Second Reading Speech to Parliament, Minister Chris Bowen stated that:

• businesses may become aware of incidents through consumer complaints, legal proceedings or other means
• businesses are not required to investigate or otherwise make itself aware of an incident that they do not become aware of in the ordinary course of business
• businesses do not need to report incidents where the product, design flaw or defect is clearly not the cause of the incident (such as when a consumer trips over a product in the store).

Additionally, the ACL Bill expands the threshold tests for imposing safety bans and recalls to require consideration of the possibility of product-related injuries from "reasonably foreseeable use or misuse".

If this feature of the ACL Bill is enacted, it will impose additional compliance burdens on suppliers. Bans and recalls will no longer be confined to risks of injury arising from the normal or intended use of a good. Suppliers will also have to consider the possibility of risks of injury arising from a reasonably foreseeable improper or unintended use or misuse of a good.

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