Submissions


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ACCAN recently submitted to the Senate Environment and Communications Reference Committee’s Inquiry into greenwashing. Greenwashing is where a business or organisation misleads consumers about their products or services as being in some way environmentally friendly.

ACCAN supports RSPs establishing practices to decrease their environmental impact and sharing those practices with consumers. However, consumers should have confidence that the RSPs they choose for their sustainability claims are substantiating those claims. In response to greenwashing in the telecommunications market ACCAN recommends:

ACCAN recently submitted to Communications Alliance’s consultation on the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code Review 2024. ACCAN’s engagement with consumers, consumer representatives, peak bodies, and consumer groups has elicited a common view that the TCP Code provides inadequate consumer protections and is not underpinned by effective compliance, enforcement, and penalty arrangements.

ACCAN has recently submitted to the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s call for comments on their draft caption target reduction orders.

ACCAN has recommended that the ACMA do not grant the exemptions for the two channels arguing that they undermine the obligation for subscription broadcasters to provide year-on-year increased quotas for captions.

ACCAN recently submitted our comments on the draft grant opportunity guidelines for Rounds 1 and 2 of the Telecommunications Disaster Resilience Innovation program.

ACCAN supports programs that mitigate the impact of natural disasters by strengthening the resilience of telecommunications facilities throughout Australia. In ACCAN’s view, the guidelines provide sound guidance to facilitate grant opportunities that improve the preparedness of Australia’s telecommunications networks against rising climate risks.

ACCAN supported the ACMA proposal to remake the Radio Communication Labelling Determination (2013) in a recent submission. The labelling of high-power radiocommunications transmitters operating under transmitter licenses at communal sites enables  both industry and the ACMA with the necessary information to ensure that these transmitters continue to operate as intended. 

ACCAN recently submitted our comments on the Variation to the NBN Co Special Access Undertaking (SAU) Draft Decision consultation.

The SAU sets out the regulatory framework for determining NBN Co’s service offerings, revenue, expenditures and service standards. The variation sets out a framework for extensive engagement with Consumer Advocacy Groups, such as ACCAN to inform the prioritisation of expenditure to align with consumer expectations. While the proposed variation to the SAU represents a material step forward, there is no provision to resource the extensive engagement NBN Co is proposing to undertake, accordingly we consider further refinements are needed.

ACCAN recently submitted to the Mobile Network Hardening Program Round 2 – Draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines. In our submission we recommended that the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts should:

ACCAN recently submitted on the ACMA’s 2023-2028 draft five-year spectrum outlook (the FYSO). The ACMA consults annually on spectrum management priorities for the coming year.

ACCAN’s submission expressed our support for the FYSO’s goals including to:

ACCAN recently submitted to Communications Alliance’s consultation on C570:2009 Mobile Number Portability.

ACCAN supports measures to make it easier for consumers to switch between service providers while keeping their phone number. ACCAN considers the current code to be meeting its intended objectives: providing guidance for industry and providing consumer protection. Given the success of the code to date, we suggest a review of the performance levels outlined in the Code in the future as technology allows.

ACCAN recently submitted to Communications Alliance’s consultation on C657:2015 Inbound Number Portability.

ACCAN considers the current code to be meeting its intended objectives: providing guidance for industry and providing consumer protection.

ACCAN recently made a submission to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2026 Census topic consultation. The submission received endorsement from the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (DRMC), the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA), the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), and the Centre for Inclusive Design (CfID). ACCAN’s submission recommended:

ACCAN recently commented on the 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy Discussion Paper. ACCAN’s submission recommended that:

  • Cyber security by design should be fostered in key software and apps markets.
  • Consumers and small businesses should only have their data collected where strictly necessary and any data collected must be safely stored.
  • Consumer and small business education should be a key focus of the cyber security strategy.
  • Consumer protections should be strengthened to reduce technology facilitated abuse.