The Federal Governments Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has come under attack from the NSW Government over its response to the Samsung washing machine saga that blew up when several Samsung washing machines burst into flames.
NSW Fair Trading Minister Victor Dominello who has no jurisdiction outside of NSW claims that some consumers who don’t live in NSW are not being adequately protected claiming that the ACCC has not done their job properly despite the ACCC generating massive publicity for the recall.
“He claims that he is deeply worried someone will die due to a lack of action”.
This is despite the ACCC, Samsung, as well as Choice Magazine generating national publicity across multiple media sources for the recall which got a publicity top up recently when Choice chose to crush an affected washing machine in an effort to generate publicity for their own organisation/
One ACCC source said “This is a Minister trying to get publicity for himself and his department. He knows that the ACCC has gone to great lengths to generate publicity for this recall”.
In July, Mr Dominello upgraded the recall from voluntary to mandatory because in two years only half of the 144,000 affected machines had been repaired or replaced. Nearly 100,000 of the affected machines are outside NSW – 39,000 in Queensland, 27,000 in Victoria, 14,500 in WA, 3200 in South Australia and 7500 in the rest of the nation.
“I can sleep at night knowing I have done everything I can within my powers as a state government minister,” Mr Dominello, told News Corporation but “I am very concerned that consumers living outside NSW are not being afforded the necessary protections.
About half of the washing machine fires have happened outside NSW.
Samsung in a later statement said ‘This is a
national recall and every Australian is entitled to elect a refund, replacement
or re-work of their affected Samsung washing machine regardless of where they
live. Owners of machines impacted by the recall can be assured that the same
recall process applies to every state and territory’.
