Divisions among commercial interests and incomprehension or merely exasperation among government agencies were apparent at yesterday's National Roundtable on Credit Reporting, held at Parliament House in Canberra and foreshadowed recently in this blog.
In opening the event Minister for Privacy Brendan O'Connor announced that "peace had broken out among participants".
Mr O'Connor was shortly thereafter called away to parliamentary proceedings and accordingly missed exchanges that indicated peace is most definitely not at hand.
The event - I was delightfully described in the list of participants as an "academic" (much to the amusement of a colleague who suggested that "bear" would be more appropriate) - involved discussion regarding "development of a proposed new Code of Conduct for the Credit Reporting industry".
The Minister's media release accordingly announced that -
Consumer and privacy advocates and representatives of the financial sector will attend the meeting at Parliament House in Canberra today.The reality was somewhat more sombre, and an ursine observer might well be forgiven for commenting that meaningful consultation involves more than gathering some actors within a tent and watching them spit at each other.
Under proposed changes to the Privacy Act, credit reporting agencies and credit providers will be required to protect consumers' private information, including details they use to assess a customers' eligibility for banking products.
"A new binding Code of Conduct will be an integral part of the new credit reporting regime, helping to provide greater protection for consumers and clearer guidance for business," Mr O'Connor said.
The Code will include more specific rules on access to clients' personal information, data accuracy and complaint handling than is possible to include in legislation.
"Today's Roundtable will provide a forum for stakeholders to discuss the development of the industry-led Code of Conduct and raise any matters arising from the draft legislation."
The Roundtable follows the referral of draft comprehensive credit reporting provisions to the Senate Finance & Public Administration Committee for review. The draft legislation implements part of the Government's response to the Australian Law Reform Commission report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice.
"This is a valuable opportunity for interested parties to express their views on credit reporting and make progress toward an industry-led Credit Reporting Code of Conduct," he said.
Telecommunications sector representatives vigorously disavowed activity by the Australasian Retail Credit Association, emphasising that they have a code that is in place and that is founded on telecommunications legislation. The retailers outlined their work towards a code, criticised by some industry sectors as having occurred on an insufficiently consultative basis. The credit reference industry, notably Veda Advantage and Dun & Bradstreet, presented its positions. The banking and insurance sectors commented on code development possibilities and initiatives.
All expressed concern, no doubt heartfelt, for consumers, including people experiencing difficulty because of the WA bushfires and floods in Victoria and Queensland. A handful of consumer advocates, outnumbered by the corporate suits, managed to offer some incisive criticisms regarding practice and remind the government representatives of the significance of consumers. Some industry sectors, such as the utilities, were no-shows.
The outcome of the event is unclear. Pending the Senate Committee consideration of the legislation it is unclear whether the telcos will be looked after through a carving out of their code from a broader national consumer credit reporting code or whether divergent and intractable positions by different industry sectors will be addressed through a single code that accommodates discrete sectoral codes in an 'agreement to disagree'. A more effective regime - not least because it would be intelligible by all consumers - would be founded on function (in essence data collection, processing, access and correction) rather than on sector. The desirability of numerous sectoral credit referencing systems and associated credit referencing regulatory regimes is unclear.
A reforming government might stand back from inter-industry squabbles, question the sacredness of a co-regulatory regime that enshrines official incapacity and drive a coherent national consumer credit referencing scheme that serves the national interest rather than preserves the dominance of a handful of dominant actors that appear to be reluctant to update their operations to ensure timely responses in situations of dispute and include flags that clearly identify 'default' information that is contested or attributed to genuine hardship.
