Govt moves to legislate better protections for telco consumers

The Australian Government is looking to deliver on its commitment to strengthen protections for telco consumers, this week introducing to Parliament the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 in order to boost the enforcement powers and penalties available to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

The proposed changes will enable the ACMA to take direct and immediate enforcement action against telecommunications providers that have breached their obligations to customers under industry codes. This will remove the current two-step process whereby the ACMA must first issue a direction to comply to offending telcos (no matter how significant the breach) and only take further action if non-compliance continues; instead, the ACMA will be able to take quick and appropriate action.

The Bill will also significantly increase the maximum general penalty for breaches of industry codes and standards under the Telecommunications Act 1997 from $250,000 to approximately $10 million. Further changes will allow penalties for codes, standards and determinations to be based on the value of the benefit obtained from the offending conduct or the turnover of the relevant provider — allowing for penalties greater than $10 million in certain circumstances. An additional change will expand and clarify the government’s ability to increase infringement notice penalty amounts the ACMA can issue for all applicable breaches, including consumer protection rules.

The Bill will also increase visibility of providers operating in the market, especially telecommunications retailers, through the establishment of a Carrier Service Provider (CSP) registration scheme. This will allow for more effective regulation of CSPs, including by empowering the ACMA to stop a CSP operating where they’ve been found to pose unacceptable risk to consumers, or have caused significant consumer harm.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) — Australia’s peak national communications consumer body — has welcomed the legislation, with CEO Carol Bennett saying that ACCAN, Australian consumers and frontline service groups have long called for reform to strengthen the powers of the ACMA when it comes to breaches by telcos that place consumers at risk of harm.

“These changes will help stop ‘fly-by-night’ telco operators, strengthen enforcement mechanisms and ensure telcos meet their obligations to customers,” Bennett said.

“ACCAN urges parliamentarians to pass these vital reforms swiftly to enshrine stronger consumer protections into law without undue delay.”

Meanwhile, the ACMA is currently seeking feedback on proposed new rules which would improve the regulatory protections for telco consumers in the event of network outages, this week releasing a package of enhanced consumer protections for consultation.

The proposed rules would require telcos to share key information with customers during significant local outages (as well as during major outages), and to take additional steps to improve the reliability of emergency call services during outages. They would also give effect to new complaint handing processes when customers experience outages, as well as enhance the broader complaint handling framework for telco customers.

The proposed rules have been published as amended versions of the following:

• Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019
• Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024
• Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard 2018
   

Feedback can be provided up until 14 March at https://www.acma.gov.au/have-your-say.

Image credit: iStock.com/Mlenny