QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:46): Thanks to the member for Adelaide, not just for his question but for standing up for consumers in his beautiful part of the world and, indeed, right around Australia. Yesterday the ACCC launched legal proceedings in the Federal Court against Microsoft for allegedly misleading about 2.7 million Australians when communicating subscription options and price increases after it integrated its AI assistant, Copilot, into Microsoft 365 plans.

Since 31 October last year, Microsoft has told subscribers it would renew subscriptions and customers would need to either accept it or cancel their subscription, and the ACCC alleges this was false and misleading because a third option wasn't disclosed. Whether it's the regulators or this government, we take these sorts of developments very seriously. This case is currently before the courts, and for that reason I won't comment on the specifics.

But I will say this: there is no place for dodgy and deceptive behaviour like that being alleged in this case. If it's proven that this has happened, it amounts to deception on an industrial scale. This week, the regulator has sent a powerful message to tech companies: we won't let Australians be treated like mugs.

I spoke to the ACCC chair about these matters today. My office was briefed on Sunday. We're very grateful for the efforts and the good work of the people at the ACCC to safeguard Australian consumers.

We're also helping them hold tech companies to account by increasing the maximum penalty for this kind of behaviour by five times, to $50 million. But we also know that the job is not done, and that's why we're doing more work to ban unfair trading practices under the Australian Consumer Law. Our changes will address a wide range of dodgy practices, including traps that make it difficult or confusing to cancel a subscription; hidden fees and charges at different stages of a purchase; deceptive or manipulative practices online; and actions that make it difficult for people to report problems with their products or services.

This is about easing the cost of living and getting a fair go for consumers and suppliers, and here I want to pay tribute to my colleague the assistant minister for competition for his work in this area. He's doing a mountain of work when it comes to the Consumer Law. I appreciate it.

I pay tribute to him for that and I thank him for that as well. He's just written to his state and territory colleagues to seek their agreement to these reforms. Accelerating technological change is a big opportunity for Australian businesses, workers and consumers, but it can't come at any cost.

We need to make sure it works for people, not against people. That's why so much of our economic policy is focused on maximising the benefits while minimising the risks of emerging technology—including the work by the minister for industry, by the member for Parramatta and also, this week on copyright, by the Attorney-General.