The Australian Consumer Law gives you a set of automatic rights whenever you buy goods or services from a business anywhere in the country. These rights, called consumer guarantees, are built into the sale by statute and cannot be signed away, waived, or cut down by any store policy or contract clause. If something goes wrong, you’re entitled to a remedy from the business that sold it to you, and how serious the problem is decides whether that remedy is a repair, a replacement, a refund, or compensation.1Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Consumer Rights and Guarantees
The law sits in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and applies identically in every state and territory.2Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Marking 10 Years Since the Transformation of Australian Consumer Law It covers new and second-hand goods, online purchases, and physical shopfronts alike. It does not cover private sales between individuals who aren’t running a business.
Who Counts as a Consumer
You’re a consumer if you buy goods or services for $100,000 or less. The threshold was lifted from $40,000 in July 2021. Purchases above $100,000 still qualify if the goods are of a kind normally acquired for personal, domestic, or household use, and vehicles or trailers used mainly to transport goods on public roads qualify regardless of price.3Tasmanian Government. Competition and Consumer Act 2010 – Schedule 2 The Australian Consumer Law You lose consumer status if you bought the goods to resell them or to use them up as inputs in manufacturing.
What the Guarantees on Goods Actually Promise
Every qualifying sale of goods carries four core guarantees.4Australian Consumer Law. For Consumers
- Acceptable quality. Products must be safe, durable, and free from hidden defects, judged by what a reasonable person aware of the item’s condition would accept given its price and description.
- Fit for purpose. If you told the seller before buying that you needed the item for a particular task, it has to actually do that task.
- Matching description. The goods must match any advertising, packaging, sales pitch, sample, or display model you relied on.
- Clear title. The seller must have the right to sell, and no one else can turn up later with a better claim over the item.
These sit with the seller. The business that sold you the product cannot fob you off to the manufacturer when something goes wrong.1Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Consumer Rights and Guarantees
What the Guarantees on Services Promise
Service providers must use a reasonable level of skill and take proper care. The benchmark is what a competent professional in the same trade would deliver.5Australian Consumer Law. Consumer Guarantees – A Guide for Businesses and Legal Practitioners The service, and any product it produces, must be fit for any purpose you communicated beforehand. If no completion date is agreed, the work has to be delivered within a reasonable time judged by normal practice in that industry.
Repair, Replace, Refund: Who Chooses?
The remedy you get turns on whether the failure is major or minor.6Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Repair, Replace, Refund, Cancel
Major Failures: Your Choice
A failure is major if the product is unsafe, is substantially different from its description, has problems so serious you wouldn’t have bought it had you known, or can’t be fixed easily within a reasonable time. When that happens, you pick the remedy: a full refund, a replacement of the same type, or keep the product and take compensation for the drop in value. For services, a major failure lets you cancel the contract and get a refund for the unused portion, or take compensation for the reduced value of what was delivered.
Minor Failures: Business Chooses, With Limits
When the problem is minor and fixable, the business decides whether to repair, replace, or refund. That choice isn’t unlimited. If the business won’t or can’t sort it out within a reasonable time, you can have the repair done elsewhere and recover the reasonable cost from the original seller.
“No Refund” Signs Are Illegal
A “no refund,” “no refunds on sale items,” or “exchange only” sign is unlawful because it implies you can never get your money back, even when the product is genuinely faulty. The only version that passes muster is a sign clarifying that refunds aren’t given for change of mind, since the guarantees don’t cover change of mind when nothing is wrong with the product.
Proof of Purchase
A business can ask you to prove you bought the item, but it doesn’t have to be a till receipt. A credit or debit card statement, a lay-by agreement, an online order confirmation number, a warranty card tied to the purchase, or a serial number matched to the supplier’s records will do. You may need more than one form if any single piece is thin.7Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Receipts, Bills, Proof of Purchase
Warranties Don’t Replace Your Statutory Rights
A manufacturer’s warranty sits on top of the consumer guarantees. It can add to your rights but can never reduce them. Any warranty document must include mandatory wording spelling out that goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded, that you’re entitled to a replacement or refund for a major failure plus compensation for other reasonably foreseeable loss, and that you’re entitled to repair or replacement for lesser failures of acceptable quality.8Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Warranties
The practical point: even after the warranty period expires, you may still have a remedy under the consumer guarantees if the product hasn’t lasted as long as a reasonable person would expect given what you paid.
When to Go Straight to the Manufacturer
Manufacturers must provide spare parts and repair facilities for a reasonable period after a product is sold, even if you didn’t buy from them directly. Where a product has a safety defect, you can seek compensation from the manufacturer directly. A product has a safety defect when it doesn’t meet the safety the public is generally entitled to expect, taking into account marketing, packaging, instructions, warnings, and what people might reasonably do with it.9ACCC Product Safety. Product Safety Laws and Liability Compensation can cover personal injury, injury or death of another person, and economic loss from damage to other property.
Time limits apply. You have three years from when you became aware, or should reasonably have become aware, of the loss, the defect, and the manufacturer’s identity. No claim can be brought more than ten years after the manufacturer supplied the defective product.
Misleading Conduct and How Prices Must Be Shown
Businesses must not engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive, or likely to be. Intent doesn’t matter; the test is the overall impression on a reasonable person.10Australian Competition Law. Australian Consumer Law Section 18 – Misleading or Deceptive Conduct Silence can mislead too. If a business stays quiet about something that would significantly change your decision to buy, that omission can breach the law. Specific rules target false claims about price, quality, and geographic origin. Labelling a product “Made in Italy” when it was only packaged there is the kind of thing that draws penalties.
Prices must be shown as a single total figure covering all taxes and unavoidable charges: the minimum amount a customer could actually pay. Advertising a low headline number and then piling on unavoidable fees at checkout is drip pricing, and it isn’t allowed.11Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Price Displays
Unfair Terms in Standard Contracts
Phone plans, gym memberships, software licences, insurance policies: most of us sign standard form contracts without negotiating a word. The law lets you challenge unfair terms in those contracts. A term is unfair only if all three of these are present: it creates a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights, it isn’t reasonably necessary to protect the business’s legitimate interests, and it would cause you financial or other harm if enforced.12Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Unfair Contract Term Protections for Consumers
Since November 2023, proposing, applying, or relying on an unfair term is illegal, not just void, and carries significant civil penalties. Each unfair term counts as a separate breach.13Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Contracts If a court strikes out an unfair term, the rest of the contract keeps binding both parties as long as it can still operate without that clause.
Cooling Off After a Doorstep or Phone Sale
Uninvited sales approaches are tightly restricted. Door-to-door salespeople can visit only on weekdays between 9 am and 6 pm, and on Saturdays between 9 am and 5 pm. Telemarketers can call between 9 am and 8 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 5 pm on Saturdays. Both are prohibited on Sundays and public holidays.14Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Telemarketing and Door-to-Door Sales
If you sign an agreement during an unsolicited visit or call, you get a 10 business day cooling-off period starting the first business day after you sign or receive the agreement. You can cancel without penalty and without reason.
The cooling-off window extends when the seller breaks the rules. It stretches to three months if the salesperson called outside permitted hours, didn’t give their name, or didn’t explain why they were contacting you. It stretches to six months if they didn’t tell you about the cooling-off period, didn’t provide a written agreement, left out the cancellation form, or supplied goods or services during the cooling-off period (with narrow exceptions for utilities, emergency repairs, and products under $500).
Gift Card Expiry
Gift cards sold on or after 1 November 2019 must be redeemable for at least three years from the date they were supplied. The expiry has to be displayed prominently on the card. If the expiry is stated as a period rather than a fixed date, the issue date must also appear. Cards with no expiry have to say so.15Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Gift Cards and Discount Vouchers
Some categories are exempt from the three-year floor: reloadable cards, promotional cards given away for free, cards for a time-limited event, cards sold at a genuine discount below face value, cards inside employee reward or customer loyalty programs, and second-hand cards. Standard retail cards you’d buy in a shop sit squarely under the three-year rule.
Where to Get Help
Start with the business that sold you the product or service. Explain the problem and say what remedy you want. Many disputes end there. If they don’t, your state or territory consumer protection agency (NSW Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Office of Fair Trading Queensland, and equivalents elsewhere) can explain your rights and sometimes help negotiate with the business.16Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Where to Go for Consumer Help
For financial products, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority handles disputes as a free alternative to court. For broader patterns of misconduct, you can report the business to the ACCC, which enforces the law nationally and can bring court action against businesses engaging in widespread breaches. Penalties for serious contraventions run into tens of millions of dollars, which is what gives an individual complaint its wider bite.17Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Fines and Penalties