Consumer Affairs Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) sought stakeholder views on their experiences with unfair contract terms in standard form contracts being offered to small businesses and how best to protect small businesses against such terms.

CAANZ drafted a consultation paper and a fact sheet outlining the key issues to be considered as part of this consultation process. The Australian Treasury undertook the consultation process on behalf of CAANZ and feedback was collected via the Treasury website and closed on August 2014.

Businesses were also encouraged to fill out a 10-15 minute online survey.

This follows an agreement by Consumer Affairs Ministers in 2013 to consider extending existing unfair contract terms protections for consumers in the Australian Consumer Law to small businesses.

Online survey for businesses

The online survey is now closed.