New laws and rules coming into effect in 2019
If your child takes a mobile to school or uses the school canteen; if you have a credit card or private health insurance; or if you’ve ever been dudded by faulty goods, read on. These changes could affect you.
Here’s what you need to know
Mobile phones at school
If your primary schooler has a mobile phone, then it’s time to have a discussion about when to use it. The State Government has banned the devices during school hours from this year.
High schools will have the choice to opt into the ban or introduce other restriction measures. The government says the new measures are in response to an expert review which shows rising cases of online bullying, inappropriate sharing of explicit images between students, predatory behaviour from strangers and unnecessary distraction for students.
Check with your school to see how they will administer the ban and in the case of high school, whether the ban or other measures will apply.
Consumer rights
If you’ve ever endured the frustration of trying to get repairs to a faulty item worth less than a few thousand dollars, 2019 will be the year you’ve been waiting for.
From today the NSW Fair Trading Commissioner will be able to use new powers to resolve consumer complaints about items worth less than $3000 rather than have the issue end up in a costly and drawn out tribunal process.
The commissioner can now direct businesses to repair, refund or replace goods which is expected to mean fair, quick and cheap resolutions for consumers and businesses.
The commissioner’s new powers will be for goods worth between $25 and $3000, and will come into effect from today, January 1.
Credit card limits
New credit card limits based on what you can afford to pay off over a three-year period come into force today, January 1.
The new regulation, announced by ASIC on 5 September 2018, aims to help reduce debt traps when you apply for a new credit card or credit limit increase. As well as considering your income, the three-year period must factor in the card’s fees and the highest applicable interest rate, which is usually the cash advance rate. It also has to consider the potential costs you’ll face from other cards or loans.
The main changes are:
Responsible lending: when you apply for a credit card or a credit limit increase, lenders will assess your request based on your ability to repay the credit limit within three years
Changes to interest calculations: credit providers cannot impose retrospective interest charges. This means they can’t backdate interest on a balance that has had the benefit of an interest-free period
Credit limit reduction and card cancellation: if you get a credit card after 1 January 2019 your credit card provider must give you the option of cancelling your card or reducing your credit limit online.
School canteens
If your child is a user of the school canteen, you need to know about this because the menu choices are likely to change this year. All NSW schools must have switched over the Department of Education’s revised Healthy Canteen rules by the end of this year.
Under the revision, canteens can stock only two categories of food and drink — “everyday” or “occasional”. Everyday foods must account for three quarters of the menu, sugary drinks are banned, and canteens must promote the healthy choices over the not so healthy ones. The old system categorised foods according to traffic light colours of red (occasional) orange (sometimes) and green (healthy).
There will no longer be two ‘Red’ food days per term. However, at the discretion of the principal a school may choose to invite the canteen to cater for a special event, such as a school fair, or school celebration. On such occasions, menu items can align with the school’s plans enabling the school canteen to be fully integrated as part of the school celebration or special event.
Health insurance reform
If you reckon health insurance is already confusing, hold on to your hat for the far reaching reforms to private health insurance that will come into effect from April this year.
Under the changes, hospital insurance products will be categorised as gold, silver, bronze or basic, and supposedly standardised clinical categories for treatments will be brought in to make it clear what is and isn’t covered under the new policy categories.
However, a lot of uncertainty and confusion remains. For example, insurers can label the categories “plus” effectively creating new levels of cover. The rules around what is covered are far from straight forward. For example, chemotherapy is covered in the bronze categories, but cancer surgery cover depends on which clinical area it comes under. Lung cancer say, could be covered differently to breast cancer.
Other parts of the reform include the privatehealth.gov.au website getting a major upgrade to make it easier to compare insurance products, and allowing insurers to provide personalised information to consumers on their product.
The Private Health Insurance Ombudsman will have increased power and resources to resolve consumer complaints quickly.
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