North communities a dedicated person to turn to on consumer issues. The Office of Fair Trading will
partner with the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network, ICAN, and deploy specially trained officers
to Yarrabah and Palm Island.
Remote Indigenous communities can often be the target of unscrupulous businesses, due to their
isolation and lack of marketplace competitiveness. For example, just last week hundreds of Far North
Queenslanders entered into costly and unfair contracts after a household goods rental firm doorknocked
local homes. Consumers have extra rights when approached by door-to-door sellers and they also have
other options to get household goods without incurring massive debts for years. However, those are the
types of things that people might not always be aware of. In this recent case, ICAN was able to pass on
information from the affected consumers. The Office of Fair Trading then investigated and got the firm to
cancel all 800 of the rental contracts and pay back in excess of $13,000 it had obtained from the
residents.
The Office of Fair Trading wants to prevent similar incidents happening in the first place, but
recognises the Indigenous community did not traditionally lodge consumer complaints. We need to
change this situation, which is why we are training seven ICAN staff in fair trading matters. They will
work on the ground within the community and be armed with even more knowledge and skills to help
protect the rights of residents and, where necessary, pass on information to the Office of Fair Trading for
enforcement action.
The Office of Fair Trading has provided funding for ICAN services for two years as part of its
2009-10 Indigenous strategy. The strategy also includes an Indigenous consumer campaign called
Know Your Rights, which will start in March with ads appearing on radio and print publications over the
coming months.
The Bligh government is committed to protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples. All the
opposition leader and the LNP are doing for Indigenous people is labelling them and their traditions as
living fossils, as we will recall. If members want further evidence of that, they need look no further than
yesterday’s debate on the preamble to the Constitution.
