OCBA - Information standards

What are information standards?

Information standards regulate the type and amount of information provided to you, as a consumer, about goods and services.

An information standard can:

require particular information to be provided, or not
set the form or manner of this information
give a certain meaning to information.

There are mandatory information standards for:

care labelling for clothing and textile products - labels should include appropriate instructions to help consumers care for the item
ingredient labelling of cosmetics and toiletries - labels must state the ingredients to help consumers compare products, identify ingredients and avoid adverse reactions
tobacco labelling – tobacco products must carry required health warnings which comprise graphic images, warning messages, explanatory messages and information messages.

The law also allows Australian governments to regulate consumer goods or product-related services by imposing mandatory safety standards.

For more information, see 'Mandatory standards'

Business responsibilities

Suppliers, manufacturers, importers, distributors, hirers and retailers must:

ensure goods and services they supply comply with relevant information standards, if sold within Australia
be familiar with information standards relevant to those goods and services.

For example:

A retailer sold imported dresses not properly labelled with instructions for washing, dry-cleaning and ironing. The retailer was fined because the labels did not contain all instructions required by the information standard.

For a full list of existing information standards see Product Safety, Bans.

Supplying goods and services that do not comply with an information standard is an offence. The maximum criminal penalty is $1.1 million for a body corporate and $220,000 for an individual. Civil penalties for the same amount apply.

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Information standards

On this page

What are information standards?

Business responsibilities

Penalties