Unsafe products in online marketplaces will be a major focus of the ACCC's product safety priorities during 2025-26, ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb announced today.
Addressing the National Consumer Congress in Melbourne, Ms Cass-Gottlieb outlined the importance of the ACCC's role in protecting consumers from unsafe products and announced five priority areas.
Among the priorities is addressing unsafe products in the digital economy.
"Reducing the prevalence of high-risk unsafe consumer products online will be key. We will focus on systemic and high-risk product safety issues for consumers. And we will use a combination of regulation, education for consumers and for businesses, compliance and enforcement tools, where appropriate," Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
"The risks in the digital economy are layered, they include not only physical harm from unsafe or non-compliant goods, but also the associated economic harm and decline in consumer trust in markets."
"Addressing these harms is essential to maintaining trust in digital markets and ensuring those markets are competitive and safe," Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
The other four priorities are consumer and product safety issues impacting young children, lithium-ion battery safety, updating mandatory standards and improving product safety data to identify safety risks. Aligned with these priorities, the ACCC will maintain strong relationships across the regulator network, including information sharing and responding to harm.
"The ACCC will continue to prioritise product safety affecting young children, who can be at greater risk of injury or death from consumer products," ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe said.
"We will focus on compliance with button battery standards and continue to raise awareness about new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards."
"The dangers of button batteries, unstable furniture, and unsafe infant sleep products impact families every day and we want to ensure the standards don't just exist, but are understood, implemented and enforced so children are kept safe," Ms Lowe said.
The ACCC will continue to support the safe use of lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from smartphones to e-bikes, and are used in home solar systems. As the use of lithium ion batteries grows, the ACCC continues to focus on the safety of these products.
"Raising consumer awareness about the safe purchase, storage, use and disposal of lithium-ion batteries, and monitoring recalls of unsafe lithium-ion battery products, will be another major focus this year," Ms Lowe said.
The ACCC will begin a series of expedited reviews of existing mandatory standards from July 2025, following recent amendments to the Australian Consumer Law. These reviews will consider which voluntary overseas and international standards should be added as compliance options for mandatory standards. This will help ensure that mandatory standards are up to date, and can lower compliance costs for businesses.
The ACCC will also work to continue to improve product safety data to help us identify risks and protect consumers. This will include strategies to increase reporting of product safety incidents to the ACCC, working with other regulators and stakeholders to increase data sharing and undertaking new consultation and research to understand the key risks affecting Australian consumers.
"The priorities I have outlined today reflect the environment we're operating in - one defined by digital acceleration and rising complexity," Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
"These priorities are designed to respond to known harms, and to anticipate the emerging risks that could shape the future of consumer safety. They reflect our commitment to protect Australian consumers and build and maintain their trust in markets in an era of change and uncertainty."
More information including the full list of the ACCC's product safety priorities is available at Product safety priorities 2025-26.
A transcript of Ms Cass-Gottlieb's National Consumer Congress address is available on our website.
Background
Each year the ACCC announces its compliance and enforcement priorities and product safety priorities for the financial year ahead.
These priorities help guide the product safety work of the agency and ensure it focuses its work on the most important and impactful issues.
The Australian Product Safety Pledge helps the ACCC remove unsafe products from those online marketplaces that are signatories.
We are looking to expand the pledge and strengthen its commitments and reporting requirements to address the unsafe products available for sale on online marketplaces.
