Labor welcomes a proposal from the telecommunications industry to expand the scope of Complaints in Context reporting, which reports on the number of new complaints for a retailer as a proportion of their services in operation.

This is a sensible and pragmatic measure to expand the participation of telecommunications providers in the reporting scheme, and can in turn improve public access to comparable baseline measures on the service performance.

In contrast to these pragmatic steps, the Turnbull Government‘s consumer agenda is two years behind schedule, lacks cohesion, and is characterised by proposals that fail to address the key incentive structures that too often work against consumer interests.

Labor’s NBN Service Guarantee will establish the right incentives to encourage the telecommunications supply chain to deliver more responsive service and better safeguard individual consumers and small businesses against excessive NBN downtime.

Strengthening wholesale service standards on the NBN also has the strong support of stakeholders including: 

• The NBN Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee
• Small business groups
• Consumer groups such as ACCAN
• Retail service providers
• Internet Australia

It’s time this out of touch Minister focused on consumer outcomes, rather than how to sweep complaints under the rug.

Labor remains the only party committed to placing consumers at the core of its policy agenda, and willing to back that up with effective action.