2024–25 was another challenging year for many Victorians, with rising living costs and housing pressures remaining significant issues for the community. Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) focused on ensuring that our services and functions continued to support people with these important life issues and to promote a fair, safe and competitive marketplace for Victorians, in line with the directions and priorities set out in our strategic plan.
There was strong demand for help, with the contact centre answering 226,102 calls and responding to 84,825 online or written enquiries, and the CAV website receiving nearly 7 million visits. We also provided 6537 frontline compliance response services, an increase of over 40% on last year, encouraging compliance and dispute-resolution by providing information about consumer and renting legal requirements to parties in dispute.
With an increasing number of Victorians living in higher-density or multi-dwelling settings, in March 2025 we opened a dedicated phone channel for owners corporation issues, alongside our existing website and online service. At the same time, we updated the approved fee notice forms that owners corporations must use when seeking payment from lot owners, to ensure owners who may be struggling to pay fees get advice on their options and the support available.
Improving our services and support for First Nations communities is a priority for us under our strategic plan. In 2024–25 we launched Yarrka Barring, a dedicated phone service and website resources to assist First Nations consumers and renters with culturally relevant and accessible content, developed in response to feedback from First Nations communities and organisations about the issues that affect them most.
Renting is the top category of issue Victorians contact us about, and helping with renting issues is also a priority for CAV given the importance of safe, secure and affordable housing to people’s everyday lives. During 2024–25, CAV responded to 64,116 renting-related calls and the renting section on the CAV website remained the most popular, receiving over 4.7 million visits.
In the past 3 years, CAV saw the demand for rent investigations increase significantly in response to market conditions. It was encouraging to see this reduce in 2024–25, down 27% to 5,442 rent investigation requests this year, similar to 2022–23 numbers.
In the last 2 months of the financial year, we also ran a significant communications campaign across a range of advertising channels, to reach renters, rental providers and agents, building awareness of their renting rights and responsibilities. Called Funda-rentals, the campaign reached people more than 39.2 million times. This complemented other communications efforts throughout the year, including launching an updated Renters Guide to coincide with the opening of the new Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria service in June 2025.
Some Victorians need more intensive help and support to address consumer, renting and financial issues they are facing. CAV’s community programs continued to deliver financial counselling, renter assistance and consumer support to thousands of Victorians during the year, including helping 3,728 people affected by family violence with specialist financial counselling support.
In 2024–25 the government also undertook a new Financial Counselling Funding Round, providing an additional $15 million in funding over 3 years to 16 community organisations, to meet demand for financial counselling for people experiencing mortgage or rental stress. This followed 2023–24’s Rental Stress Support Package, which in 2024–25 provided $4.1 million in funding to support an additional 4,094 renters with renting assistance and advocacy services.
CAV has also increased its compliance and enforcement activity in key consumer markets, ensuring Victorians are not left to respond to breaches of their rights and protections alone, and traders are held accountable. Our court and administrative actions increased by more than 20%, including finalising 15 court and tribunal actions. We launched 20 new court and tribunal proceedings in 2024–25, in response to serious alleged offending or non-compliance.
Our renting taskforce, announced towards the end of 2023–24, scaled up its operations in 2024–25. While it has a strong focus on engagement and early intervention to prevent breaches and problems wherever possible, it does not hesitate to take further action where required. In 2024–25, the renting taskforce issued 129 official warnings and 89 infringements totalling more than $700,000 in fines for renting law offences, as well as initiating 5 criminal proceedings.
Underquoting also remains a top concern for Victorians. In August 2024 the government made the underquoting taskforce a permanent enforcement arm of CAV in recognition of the need to keep a strong focus on stamping out this unfair and illegal practice. The taskforce launched several significant legal proceedings for serious alleged breaches in 2024–25.
Transport costs account for an important part of Victorians’ household budgets after housing, and cars are critical for many people to get to work, family and health commitments. In 2024–25, CAV focused strongly on stopping motor car trading conduct that harms consumers, with targeted intervention designed to educate, change trader behaviour and secure remedies for consumers who bought faulty cars. We provided more frontline compliance support to consumers with car disputes – up over 140% – and issued 23 infringements for motor car trading breaches, up from 3 in the previous financial year, as well as launching new court and tribunal actions.
In May 2025, the Minister for Consumer Affairs imposed an urgent interim product safety ban on the supply of machetes in Victoria, under the Australian Consumer Law, in response to concerning incidents in the community. CAV established a dedicated taskforce to ensure compliance with the ban, ultimately inspecting more than 480 retailers across Victoria, 2,400 stalls at 8 weekend markets and 80 online platforms and retailers, by the time the ban ended on 1 September 2025. Suppliers were overwhelming supportive and compliant with the ban. Machete sales dried up, and 5 infringements and 8 official warnings were issued to online retailers identified as non-compliant.
The machete ban taskforce was able to leverage CAV’s experience and skills in product safety, given our enduring focus on ensuring safe and compliant consumer products in the marketplace, especially for children. CAV inspected more than 900 stores in 2024–25, as well as working with the Melbourne Royal Show to remove dangerous goods from sale and, in March 2025, issuing an urgent public warning about large retail outlet Panda Mart, after seizing thousands of non-compliant items from its shelves.
While CAV has a strong focus on ensuring compliance, we are also committed to supporting traders to understand and meet their legal requirements.
In May 2025, we completed a major, multi-year digital improvement project, bringing all our licensing and registration schemes under a single-entry point through the myCAV online system. This makes it easier for businesses, professionals and community organisations to interact with us and meet their regulatory obligations, saving them time and resources so they can get on with their work. The upgrade also enhanced our public registers, now searchable online to improve transparency and allow stakeholders to access up-to-date information easily.
After publishing a new stakeholder engagement framework last year, our 2 new standing forums, the Consumer and Renter Consultative Forum and the Housing and Property Advisory Forum, each met three times during 2024–25. We also surveyed our stakeholders during the year on their views about CAV’s priorities, actions and engagement. It was encouraging to see an increase in stakeholder understanding of CAV’s priorities and confidence that we will listen and engage on issues raised with us; but we know we must continue to focus on timely compliance responses and communication about our work in the coming year, to build trust and confidence in our impact for the Victorian community.
I thank the Minister for Consumer Affairs, the Hon. Nick Staikos MP, and our former Minister, the Hon. Gabrielle Williams MP, for their commitment to good consumer and renting outcomes, and support over the year covered by this report. I would also like to acknowledge our partners and colleagues in the Department of Government Services and across the Victorian Government, who provide critical support and collaboration for our functions and services.
I thank our community-based program partners for their ongoing commitment to safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of Victorians facing debt, housing, and other consumer issues. I also extend my appreciation and thanks to our staff for their efforts every day to support and protect Victorians. It’s a privilege to work with such dedicated colleagues.
In 2025–26, a range of important new renting and consumer reforms will take effect in Victoria. CAV will continue to focus on providing advice, support and market interventions on the issues that matter most to Victorians, to ensure Victoria’s consumer and renting laws deliver a fair and safe experience in the marketplace for all.
Nicole Rich
Executive Director, Regulatory Services &
Director, Consumer Affairs Victoria