National Priority 2

Advocacy of Indigenous Consumers' Interests

The focus of this priority is to increase awareness and consideration of Indigenous consumer issues across government and non government agencies.

Existing marketplace regulation often ignores the needs of Indigenous consumers. Consumer agencies do not have direct responsibility for all laws and policies that can potentially affect Indigenous consumers and there is a need to establish partnerships between consumer agencies and service providers, such as government health and housing agencies, in order to improve outcomes for Indigenous consumers. It is also important to work proactively with Indigenous organisations to promote consumer awareness programs and reinforce consumer rights and responsibilities.

Issues	Actions	Responsibility	Timeline
Inadequate support for non government organisations to advocate for Indigenous consumers.	Identify regulatory agencies other than consumer agencies that have responsibility for laws that affect consumers and develop relationships to influence policy.	All consumer agencies.	Ongoing.
	Promote the Indigenous Consumer Education website nationally.	Australian Government to continue to host and maintain the national Indigenous consumer website.	Ongoing.
Consumer agencies do not have direct control over all laws and policies that impact upon Indigenous consumers.	Consumer agencies to develop ongoing relationships with Indigenous policy and representative organisations to: increase awareness of consumer issues in those organisations; increase consumer protection agencies’ awareness of Indigenous issues; and develop effective referral processes.	Consumer agencies in partnership with other government and non government organisations, in particular the Commonwealth Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination.	December 2005 and ongoing.
Low level of awareness of Indigenous Australians as consumers and the problems they face.	Consumer agencies will review their enforcement policies and processes to take into account the development of the "Best Practice Enforcement Guide".	All consumer agencies.	Review of enforcement policies and processes by December 2006.
	Consumer agencies to support appropriate levels of funding for advocacy organisations supporting Indigenous consumers and to work with advocacy organisations to improve their capacity for advocacy work. (eg, secondments, CDEP).	All consumer agencies in partnership with other appropriate government agencies, in particular the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination.	Ongoing.