Chair

Norman Gillespie , Chief Executive of UNICEF Australia Norman Gillespie is a vocal advocate for child rights. Providing a voice for the underrepresented, Dr Gillespie has spoken out for child rights both domestically and internationally. He has seen UNICEF’s work on the frontline in Cambodia, Kenya, Pakistan, China, Laos, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe where he witnessed the role of UNICEF working with the inclusive government and AusAID in nation rebuilding. Dr Gillespie is a frequent media commentator on child rights and international aid.

Principal speakers

Megan Mitchell, National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell began her term as Australia’s first National Children’s Commissioner in March 2013. Megan has practical expertise in child protection, foster and kinship care, juvenile justice, children’s services, child care, disabilities, and early intervention and prevention services. Megan’s role as National Children’s Commission is to focus solely on the rights and interests of chil-dren, and the laws, policies and programs that impact them. Every year Megan reports to Parliament about the human rights of children in Australia. Her 2015 report will include the results from a literature review and consultations with children about child rights in the business context.

Topic: Experiences of the child consumer : their rights and knowledge Business, whatever the size, and whether directly or indirectly, impacts on the rights of children on a daily basis. In this presentation, National Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell will share insights from her recent project exploring the relationship between children’s rights and business. The presen-tation considers how the four key principles of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child provide a valuable framework for guiding decisions and actions undertaken by the business sec-tor that have an impact on children. In particular, this involves looking at tensions arising between the rights of children to participate in and develop through engagement with the economic market, and responsibilities to prioritise children’s best interests and safety in commercial contexts. The Commis-sioner will relay suggestions made by children and young people on ways in which business can ad-dress some of these key rights issues and champion the rights of children.

Sarah Court, Commissioner, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Sarah Court was appointed a Commissioner of the ACCC in April 2008 and was reappointed for a fur-ther five year term in 2013. She has extensive experience in Commonwealth legal work, including re-strictive trade practices, consumer protection and law enforcement litigation. Ms Court oversees the ACCC’s enforcement and litigation program and she is chair of the Commis-sion’s Enforcement Committee. She takes an active role in the Commission’s enforcement and compli-ance work, and engages closely with investigating teams and lawyers on Commission policies and enforcement investigations. Topic: Scope for application of Australian consumer law to protect children’s interests Commissioner Court will outline the issues relating to child consumers that are currently on the ACCC’s radar, and explore the range of protections currently offered to child consumers by the Aus-tralian Consumer Law and provide some recent case studies. She will also consider whether the up-coming review of the Australian Consumer Law offers an opportunity to increase protections for child consumers in Australia.

RIGHTS OF THE CHILD CONSUMER

November 20 2015

SPEAKERS

Elizabeth Handsley , Professor of Law Flinders University. Elizabeth Handsley joined Flinders in 1996, and has taught also at law schools in Sydney and Perth. She teaches constitutional law and media law, and researches mainly on children's media law. In that work Elizabeth aims to challenge media law by exposing it to multidisciplinary and cross-doctrinal com-parisons, for example with human rights and consumer protection paradigms. Elizabeth is the Presi-dent of the Australian Council on Children and the Media. Elizabeth's has recently edited the proceed-ings of the Harvard-Australia Symposium on Media Use and Children's Well-Being for publication by Federation Press. In July she was admitted as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law ( AAL).

Topic: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, business and the child consumer This paper explores the role that international standards could play in shaping law and practice within Australia for the protection of the child consumer. Australian law already protects consumers, but the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Business, and the Children's Rights and Business Principles suggest that there is a need to do more to respond to the special needs of children. Examples will be drawn from a range of areas, including food advertising and children's access to violent media.

Other speakers in alphabetical order

Chris Althaus, CEO, Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA)

Chris Althaus was appointed to this position in 2005. AMTA is the peak industry organisation repre-senting Australia’s mobile telecommunications sector and operates programs covering areas such as - mobile telecommunications policy, mobile network deployment, radiofrequency spectrum, health & safety, recycling, law enforcement, content regulation and consumer awareness & education.

Mr Althaus has a Bachelor of Science (For) from the Australian National University; Graduate Diploma in Economics from the University of Canberra; and Business Administration Diploma from Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

Jenny Buckland CEO, Australian Children’s Television Foundation

Jenny Buckland is the CEO of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. She is a lawyer with extensive experience in the production, financing and international distribution of children’s television programs.

Abstract The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the important role of mass media in chil-dren’s lives. But when we think about children and media we are often more concerned with the need to protect children from harmful content than we are about the quality of the content the media pro-vides children. This presentation examines the way children’s television has been regulated and sup-ported in Australia, by putting children’s needs right at the centre of our policy response.

Alice Cope, Executive Manager of the Global Compact Network Australia

This organisation is the Australian, business-led network of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.

Alice was previously a Policy and Sustainability Advisor at the UN Global Compact in New York, where she focused on business and human rights and supply chain sustainability. Alice has also consulted to the private sector on business and human rights and international corporate responsibility standards. Before moving into the corporate responsibility space, Alice was a corporate lawyer with Allens.

Ron Curry, CEO – Interactive Games & Entertainment Association

Since joining IGEA in 2008, Ron has played an instrumental role in tackling the emerging issues sur-rounding interactive entertainment and demonstrating the positive influence of computer and video games in the broader community particularly within the education and health sector. Ron was an Advi-sory Committee Member on the ALRC's Classification Review, and holds a seat on the government's Online Safety Consultative Working Group. Prior to joining IGEA, Ron spend over 15 years in the inter-active entertainment business working for platform holders, publishers and distributors in areas as var-ied as sales, marketing, operations and general management. In this time Ron was also one of the founding Directors of IGEA, which was then IEAA. In recognition of his contribution to the industry Ron was awarded the inaugural MCV Pacific Pillar of Industry Award in 2014.

Associate Professor Teresa Davis, University of Sydney Business School

Teresa's main research interests lie in two areas. The first is in children as consumers, of particular in-terest is the relationship between advertising and marketing of food. The second area is culture and consumption where her interests lies in examining 'cultures of transition' such as consumption of/in childhood and migrant groups. Related areas of research include the socio-historical analyses of culture and consumption.

Teresa has published articles in Journals such as Sociology, Marketing Theory, Journal of Marketing Management ,Consumption Markets and Culture, Young Consumers, International Journal of Consumer Studies and others. She has presented papers at many international conferences and invited seminars.

Abstract

Teresa will focus her discussion on how best we can help children be good and healthy consumers, by helping parents be good parents. In this age of individual responsibility, Industry and States expect parents to know everything that good/bad for their children and personally protect/mediate/prevent/intervene to socialise them to be good consumers. The best way to help children understand how to be good consumers is to make parents jobs easier for them. It means careful and well thought through regulation along with simple and clear education of consumers. Understanding the burden of responsibility placed on parents is key to this. Aspects of this are discussed with reference to food adverting using social media and questioning the myth around this being ‘too hard’.

Arlen Duke, Melbourne Law School

Arlen Duke is new to the area of “children’s law”, researching primarily in the area of competition law and less so in the area consumer law. Arlen wrote the “misleading conduct” chapter of Principles of Contract Law, a book he co-authors with Associate Professor Jeannie Paterson and Professor Andrew Robertson. He looks forward to exploring how misleading conduct laws, or perhaps consumer laws more generally, may assist in protecting children from exploitative advertising as well as to sharing some of his preliminary findings.

Abstract

This paper aims to situate the regulation of advertising and marketing communications for the child con-sumer within the framework of consumer law. In particular, it considers whether laws such as the prohi-bition against misleading or deceptive conduct in trade or commerce (s 18 ACL) are better able to take account of the way in which children are likely to process or understand advertising.

Angelene Falk, Assistant Commissioner of Regulation and Strategy , Office of the Aus-

tralian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Angelene oversees proactive privacy regulation including through Commissioner initiated in-vestigations, assessments of both public and private sector organisations and data breach notifications, many of which attract significant media attention. Angelene has oversight of the OAIC’s policy and stakeholder communication strategies. Her current focus is implementing the significant reforms to the Privacy Act that commenced in March 2014, including the en-hanced Commissioner enforcement powers. Protecting and promoting rights and responsibili-ties is an important priority for Angelene, one which she continues in her role today.

Laura Higgins Senior Specialist, Teaching and Learning Financial Literacy Australian

Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)

A Senior Specialist in ASIC's Money Smart Teaching team, Laura has 25 years' experience in education and a strong background in strategic policy and program management. Before join-ing ASIC, Laura was a Senior Adviser in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and in the Department of Education and Training which included a position as the Education Manager (2009-2012) at the Australian Embassy in Brussels. Laura began her career as a teacher and has a Bachelor of Education (Queen's University) and an Honours Bachelor of Arts (University of Waterloo).

Kate Hillman, Partner Ernst Young

Kate Hillman is a Partner in EY’s Advisory Services in Queensland where she leads the People Adviso-ry practice. Kate combines her formal qualifications in Executive Business Operations with comprehen-sive experience in transformation programs. Kate has deep experience in organisation design, change and strategic planning and execution. As the lead Partner for EY’s collaboration with Bravehearts, Kate is responsible for delivering ChildPlace, a risk management approach to protecting children. Kate is passionate about building a better working world by developing safe and sustainable work practices that protect the brand and reputation of her clients.

There is an increasing community and consumer expectation that companies serving and employing children will take reasonable steps to protect them from harm. Recent experience and research demon-strates that practical, tested risk management tools and methods are not being leveraged to identify and manage the serious risk of child sexual assault in many businesses. Bravehearts and EY are proud to be collaborating to bring awareness, understanding and capability to businesses across Australia, to protect children from harm and build a positive brand and reputation for our customers.

Matthew Keeley, Director and Principal Solicitor, National Children’s and Youth Law

Centre University of New South Wales.

Matthew’s insights into child rights and youth legal service delivery come from over two decades’ work as a leading legal and systems advocate for children, families and people with disability. He currently provides online legal assistance to Australian young people and youth workers through the Centre’s online Lawstuff and Lawmail services. Matthew works to generate innovative solutions to individual and social policy problems through service delivery, partnerships, communications technology, R&D and law reform. Matthew has applied this approach to the emerging areas of online legal service delivery and the significant problems that many young people are experiencing online. Matthew is Co-Chair of the Child Rights Taskforce; Convenor of the Australian Youth Advocacy Network; a member of the Australi-an Government’s Online Safety Consultative Working Group and was a member of the Australian Clear-inghouse for Youth Studies’ Consultative Committee.

Abstract

The consumer issues that LAWMAIL receives from children, particularly 15 - 17 year olds often point to teenagers’ growing independence and the need to deal with consumer issues that also involve their parents, such as moving out and renting, buying cars, joint accounts, ownership of family property and liability for debts. Their questioning is both proactive and reactive, indicating the importance of legal, financial and consumer literacy programs and services directed to both preventing consumer problems and how to respond to them when they do occur.

Phillipa Macaskill, Solicitor, King & Wood Mallesons

Philippa is a solicitor in the Dispute Resolution team of King & Wood Mallesons. She special-ises in commercial litigation and is also closely involved in pro bono work in the areas of child rights, international criminal law, human rights and refugees.

Philippa is the National Co-Coordinator of the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre’s Cyber Project in which lawyers from KWM, ASIC and Telstra answer legal queries from chil-dren and young people via email. She has co-ordinated the preparation of a special child rights edition of the Human Rights Law Centre’s Rights Agenda Bulletin since 2013, and she recently became a member of the Australian Child Rights Taskforce Steering Committee. In 2015, Philippa was awarded the Lawyers Weekly 30 under 30 Pro Bono Award.

Dr Belinda Reeve was appointed as a Lecturer at Sydney Law School in 2015. Prior to this she

worked as a Law Fellow at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Belinda was awarded her PhD from Sydney Law School in 2014, and has worked and taught at the University of Sydney since 2008.

Belinda’s research interests lie in the intersections between law, regulation, and chronic disease prevention. Her current research focuses on legal and regulatory options for creating a healthier food environment, including through product reformulation programs, and restrictions on food advertising to children.

This paper evaluates two Australian food industry codes that address the advertising of unhealthy food and beverages to children. It explores whether the codes establish the building blocks of an effective self-regulatory regime, i.e., adequate administration, monitoring, and enforcement process-es, and also discusses the strengths and weaknesses in the codes’ substantive terms and condi-tions. The paper’s conclusion is that there are significant limitations in industry self-regulation of food advertising to children. Accordingly, the paper considers what a stronger approach to regulation of food advertising to children would envisage, using a child rights approach that draws upon interna-tional human rights instruments such as UNCROC.

Gordon Renouf, Co-Founder and CEO, Ethical Consumers Australia Gordon is CEO of Ethical Consumers Australia, creators of the Good On You ethical shop-ping app. He is the Deputy Chair of Consumers Federation of Australia, a member of the Board of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, Chair of the Board of Good Envi-ronmental Choice Australia, and Deputy Chair of Justice Connect. From 2005-2010 he was Director, Policy and Campaigns at CHOICE. Previous roles include Director, National Pro Bono Resource Centre, Director, North Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service, Direc-tor, Northern Territory Government’s 2004 Alcohol Framework Inquiry. He has been a member of the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council and the Executive Council of Consumers International.

Associate Professor Kirsten Vallmuur is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Acci-

dent Research and Road Safety-Queensland at Queensland University of Technology. Her main research focus is on consumer product related injuries and she works with state and national prod-uct safety regulators to identify patterns and trends in product-related injuries in Australia to help inform decision making.

This paper examines the safety of children as users of consumer products in Australia. While under the ACL there is an onus on manufacturers and suppliers to provide goods that are safe, as well as several mandatory and voluntary safety standards for children's products in Australia, there are many products available in the market that continue to cause serious injury and death in children. Young children are particularly at risk from product-related injuries, due to their small size, their lack of understanding of risks with certain products, rapid development, and tendency to utilise products in a manner not intended or reasonably foreseen by the manufacturer. Child injury and fatality data will be used to demonstrate the issues.