NSW Fair Trading Minister proposes star ratings system for retail businesses

NSW businesses could soon be given a star rating - similar to the food authority’s “scores on doors” scheme - to avoid buyers being ripped off. Find out how it would work.

The state’s new Fair Trading Minister wants to introduce a star rating system for retail – similar to the NSW Food Authority’s “scores on doors” – to help people avoid being ripped off when they buy goods and services.

“Why can’t we do that in consumer affairs?” said Labor MP for the southwest Sydney seat of Macquarie Fields Anoulack Chanthivong in his first in-depth interview since taking on the portfolio.

Mr Chanthivong told The Daily Telegraph there was potential to improve protections by giving people better access to high-quality information in a user-friendly format.

“Power to the consumer is certainly a top priority for me,” he said.

The Food Authority’s scores on doors alerts potential customers to how well local restaurants, takeaway shops, bakeries and pub bistros are complying with hygiene and food safety requirements.

NSW Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong with David Teofilovic at Teo's on Oxford cafe in Ingleburn. Picture: Adam Yip

Mr Chanthivong intends to tap into the information Fair Trading gathers on other retailers – such as complaints and formal breaches – to assist shoppers on the main street, in malls and online.

Born in Laos but raised in the community he now represents, Mr Chanthivong helped out in his parents’ Campbelltown grocery store as he was growing up. He said star ratings were beneficial for good operators. A high score would provide consumers with more confidence to go ahead with a purchase.

“It gives an incentive to do the right thing,” he said.

NSW Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong in Ingleburn. Picture: Adam Yip

The Food Authority’s system gives five stars to outlets considered “excellent”.

A business that fails to achieve three stars does not get a rating to display. There is a similar system for measuring builders.

Mr Chanthivong, who spent more than a decade working as an economist preparing business cases based on data and other evidence before entering state politics in 2015, also believes his department can do a better job of risk-profiling to identify the tiny fraction of traders who are rogues.

“Then we can weed them out,” he said, by applying the “full force of the compliance regime.”

Fair Trading already compiles a complaints register, but it is not something a consumer is likely to come across. And there are sellers who appear on it nearly every month, facing little or no formal punishment.

Fair Trading is one of five portfolios Mr Chanthivong is responsible for. He may be the first consumer affairs minister to also have oversight of corrections.

Politicians who succeed in Fair Trading tend to be promoted quickly. Recent examples include Matt Kean, Anthony Roberts and Victor Dominello. But it can also derail careers, as was the case for Eleni Petinos and Matthew Mason-Cox.

“I hope to join the former group, not the latter,” Mr Chanthivong said.

Labor initially rejected him as a candidate for the 2011 election, however he was endorsed four years later and won 70 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote in March.