The Albanese Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen protections for telco consumers with new laws introduced to Parliament today.
The Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 will give effect to a number of significant reforms to boost the enforcement powers and penalties available to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
The proposed changes will enable the ACMA to take direct and immediate enforcement action against telecommunications providers that have breached their obligations to customers under industry codes.
This will remove the current two-step process whereby the ACMA must first issue a direction to comply to offending telcos – no matter how significant the breach – and only take further action if non-compliance continues.
It allows instead for the ACMA to take quick and appropriate action in response to breaches to immediately address consumer harm and hold telcos to account.
The Bill will also significantly increase the maximum general penalty for breaches of industry codes and standards under the Telecommunications Act 1997 from $250,000 to approximately $10 million. Further changes will allow penalties for codes, standards and determinations to be based on the value of the benefit obtained from the offending conduct or the turnover of the relevant provider – allowing for penalties greater than $10 million in certain circumstances.
This penalty framework will incentivise industry compliance and better aligns with those in other relevant sectors like energy and banking, and under the Australian Consumer Law.
To ensure the ACMA has a range of effective enforcement tools at its disposal, an additional change will expand and clarify the Government’s ability to increase infringement notice penalty amounts the ACMA can issue for all applicable breaches, including consumer protection rules.
The Bill will also increase visibility of providers operating in the market, especially telecommunications retailers, through the establishment of a Carrier Service Provider (CSP) registration scheme.
This will allow for more effective regulation of CSPs, including by empowering the ACMA to stop a CSP operating where they’ve been found to pose unacceptable risk to consumers, or have caused significant consumer harm.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP:
“The significant reforms included in this Bill will better equip the ACMA with the tools and powers it needs to protect telco consumers and hold providers to account.
“The changes provide a powerful deterrent. They incentivise telcos to educate themselves about their obligations to consumers, and to abide by those obligations – boosting compliance and improving the functioning and fairness of the telecommunications sector.
“The introduction of this Bill is another way the Government is putting consumers at the centre of the telco industry, recognising the importance of quality telecommunications services for all Australians.”
