On Statutory Warranties ( Australia Tax)

This was a curious thing when I moved to Australia, something they call the " 'stralia Tax".  Basically, even after accounting for the exchange rate, a lot of consumer goods are considerably more expensive in Australia than overseas.  Part of this can be explained by overheads of high labour costs in Australia, but not all of it. I'd seen a few inquiries into unexplainable cost differences for Australian consumers where manufacturers like Apple and others cited "consumer protection" costs... Which got me a little curious what that was about exactly.

I'd heard about something called the Statutory Warranty in passing in conversations here but no one really knew much about what it was, but that it was to blame for some of the higher prices. So I did a little digging into what it is.

Australia has consumer protection laws to help ensure that goods sold in Australia meet a certain level of quality and fit-for-use, and if not, consumers are entitled to compensation beyond voluntary warranties offered by manufacturers and retailers.

This reading was particularly well timed because our LED T.V. decided to crap out a couple days later. It was about 5.5 years old, and we had paid nearly $5000 for it at the time. I contacted the manufacturer and I was going to have to pay a minimum of $180 just to find out *if* it could be serviced. Then I checked regarding the statutory warranty and it mentioned that the warranty was with the retailer, not the manufacturers, so the first step was to negotiate with them. The retailer at first asked if we had opted for the "extended warranty" which we had not. As soon as I mentioned "statutory warranty" I was transferred to the store manager. They were quite polite and asked what we thought was a suitable resolution, which I replied that I wanted it either repaired, or replaced. After a few days they came back and said that the manufacturer wasn't going to budge, and that the TV was only expected to "live" for 5 years.  So I escalated the matter to the office of Fair Trading.

This is when things got interesting. No sooner had I received an e-mail from the OFT saying they'd be in contact with the retailer, I got another e-mail from the retailer arranging for an assessment of the T.V. at their cost.  The assessment came back that the display was faulty and that it couldn't be repaired. From there it took over a month of back & forth between the retailer and manufacturer to work out a deal. However, in the end we did receive a settlement which gave us 1/4 of the price paid towards a new T.V. of our choice provided at cost.

This raises a few interesting points. In talking with several locals about this situation, most had no idea about the statutory warranty, or expected me to get any kind of result in the matter. It also begs the question, why can retailers "sell" customers extended warranties when they are obligated to honour the statutory warranty in the first place?

The basic thing to take away from this: If you've paid a substantial amount of money for a good in Australia, and there is something wrong with it, even outside of the voluntary warranty period, it can be worth following up under the statutory warranty. Also, I can surely see no point at all to opting into extended warranties... You're already paying for one with the 'stralia Tax.