The ACCC will begin a series of expedited reviews of existing mandatory standards from July 2025, as part of a push to support innovation, reduce costs and expand safe product choices. Speaking at the ACCC’s annual National Consumer Congress on 27 June 2025, ACCC Chair Ms Gina Cass-Gottlieb announced the ACCC’s product safety priorities for the new financial year. In addition to the review of mandatory standards, online product safety and (as always) the safety of young children will be under the ACCC’s microscope, as the competition regulator seeks to use its powers to deliver real and immediate benefits for Australian consumers in the area of product safety.

Mandatory standards – an expedited review

Ms Cass-Gottlieb’s announcement of an expedited review of existing mandatory standards comes off the back of amendments made to the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) in late 2024. Those amendments were made to improve the flexibility and enforceability of Australian safety standards and information standards by making it easier for the Commonwealth Minister to recognise and include trusted overseas standards in safety and information standards made under the ACL. Given consumer goods are often manufactured and tested to safety standards developed in other major economies (e.g. the USA and UK), reform was required in order to:

• easily allow for overseas standards to be recognised alongside Australian standards; and
• avoid duplicative retesting and relabelling to adhere to the relevant Australian standard when a product already complies with an overseas standard that offers an equivalent or a better level of consumer protection.

Ms Cass-Gottlieb said the ACCC’s review will consider which voluntary overseas and international standards should be added as compliance options for Australian mandatory standards, helping ensure mandatory standards are up to date and to lower compliance costs for businesses. This will be welcome news for businesses which supply products subject to Australian safety standards, if their products are already compliant with overseas standards.

Online marketplaces 

In a continuation of one of its 2024-25 product safety priorities, the ACCC will continue to focus on reducing the prevalence of high-risk, unsafe consumer products sold online. Ms Cass Gotleib said the ACCC remains concerned about the overall volume of these products available through online marketplaces. This concern was backed up by the removal in the 2023-24 financial year of over 23,000 unsafe products listed on the websites of signatories to the Australian Product Safety Pledge. 

Ms Cass Gotleib said the ACCC will use a combination of regulation, education (for both consumers and for businesses), compliance and enforcement tools, where appropriate, to achieve effective outcomes for consumers in this area. Given the ACCC didn’t take any strict enforcement action in this area in 2024, we predict a significant lift in enforcement action in this area this year and next. 

What else for the year? 

Additionally, the ACCC will focus on:

• young children – an enduring priority for the ACCC since 2019 – focussing on high-risk product safety issues in button batteries, unstable furniture and unsafe infant sleep products;
• lithium-ion batteries – given these batteries are used to power everything from smartphones to e-bikes and home solar systems, the ACCC will be focussed on addressing the safety risk these products pose, including raising consumer awareness and assisting with recalling unsafe products;
• data and intelligence – the ACCC will attempt to enhance the quality, timeliness and accessibility of product safety data to better detect emerging risks and prevent harm, including by strengthening data sharing with regulators and stakeholders and Increasing reporting of safety incidents through public education and compliance initiatives.

Enforcement trends for 2025 and concluding remarks 

The 2024/25 financial year was perhaps the ACCC’s busiest year in recent memory in the product safety enforcement space. Of particular note, in the last 12 months, the ACCC:

• commenced its first-ever proceedings under the mandatory button battery safety requirements, bringing Federal Court Proceedings against City Beach for allegedly supplying more than 57,000 products containing button batteries that failed to meet product safety standards;
• issued Hungry Jacks with eight infringement notices totalling $150,240 for supplying a Garfield toy powered by button batteries without the requisite warnings and information required by the mandatory information standard;
• issued Davie Clothing, supplier of ‘Oodies’, with six infringement notices totalling $101,280 for failing to include high fire danger warning labels on six different styles of Oddies, as required by the relevant standard.

Despite the above, the ACCC did not take any enforcement action regarding several of its FY24/25 priorities, including sustainability-related issues (e.g. lithium-ion battery safety risks) and online marketplaces. Given its increased product safety enforcement activity last year and the fact that these issues remain a priority in the new financial year, we expect the ACCC to take enforcement action in relation to these issues within the next 12 - 18 months, while continuing its broader enforcement and education work. It is a timely reminder suppliers at all levels of the supply chain need to be extra vigilant to ensure their compliance with the ACL and that they meet relevant product safety standards.