Consumer protection is about more than fakes

Most measures to "ensure consumer protection" focus on sale of sub-standard or fake products. But this obsession with fighting counterfeits, and ignoring other issues, is evidence of a flawed approach geared to protect business, not consumers. It is time for change that includes real protection on goods and services, both imitated and ‘authentic’.

We welcome inclusion of consumer rights in the Harmonised Draft Constitution. The proposed Bill of Rights, if backed by laws as expected, will ensure companies only offer goods and services of reasonable quality, with fair, honest advertising. The enforcement agencies looking out for consumers will be expected to go beyond health and safety issues to protecting their economic interests. If this takes hold, it would be a sea change in protection, ending the exploitation or defrauding of the masses in many industries.

Ills we have decried, from the lack of honesty in lending to the absence of regulation in key industries and reliance on unethical sales practices, would all end under a regime where consumers were at the heart of policy.

The Government’s key incentive to focus on counterfeits has been to recover lost revenue. The protection of consumers also has economic advantages as money not wasted on overpriced services and goods boosts national investments and savings. In unregulated industries like the funerals business, such measures will not only end exploitation and keep billions out of graves, but also add to revenue figures.