There were so many restrictive practices reported to the Commissioner, and the investigations were so prolonged, that one cynic remarked that at the (then) current rate of progress, it would take a hundred years to examine them all!

Lionel Murphy, the Attorney-General in the Whitlam Labor Government, solicited the advice of the economist and business commentator, Professor Ted Wheelwright.

For the first time in Australian federal law, his Trade Practices Bill, which was passed on 6 August 1974, introduced offences related to monopolisation, exclusive dealing, price discrimination, resale price maintenance, restraints of trade by agreement, anti-competitive mergers, misleading advertising, coercive sales conduct, pyramid selling, and the sale of unsolicited goods.

[6]: p.205 The ACCC administers the Competition and Consumer Act, and has standing to take action in the Federal Court of Australia to enforce its provision.

In most cases the spirit of the Act, and thus the actions of the ACCC, favours neither consumer nor supplier, but strives to achieve a competitive market without artificial restrictions.

[11] The ACCC brings court action against companies that breach the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which can result in the application of fines and other penalties.

[16] This criticism is most likely due to the inherent difficulty in obtaining sufficient evidence to prove breaches of the restrictive trade practices provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act.

[24] It won a case on 24 March 2016 against Valve for failing to provide refunds for faulty products, and making representations that domestic consumer guarantees did not apply to purchases using the Steam client.

The law's definition of news is broad,[31] including "content that reports, investigates or explains ... current issues or events of public significance for Australians at a local, regional or national level.