Yes there are laws against what Puppet Productions did and yes the "goverment" could have taken action but depending on the available evidence and resources of the local government they may not have done anything.  I am sure this is even common in Australia. Sometimes the public prosecutors office feel they have bigger fish to fry so to speak. Also even when they do undertake something like this it still takes an individual or individuals that are willing to make a complaint and follow through. I am sure you have heard many stories of folks being abused physically yet the law/government could not do anything about it because the individual was not willing to press charges.

Yes there are laws against what Puppet Productions did and yes the "goverment" could have taken action but depending on the available evidence and resources of the local government they may not have done anything.  I am sure this is even common in Australia. Sometimes the public prosecutors office feel they have bigger fish to fry so to speak. Also even when they do undertake something like this it still takes an individual or individuals that are willing to make a complaint and follow through. I am sure you have heard many stories of folks being abused physically yet the law/government could not do anything about it because the individual was not willing to press charges.

Kind of like what I was saying above: that it may be that the issue needs to be reported first for anything to have happen on a governmental level.

I'm not sure if I was clear, but with the government watchdog thing, it's simply a matter of sending through a report, often you just have to fill in a few things on the relevant website. It's anonymous as far as I know (that is, someone else wouldn't necessarily know it was person X who complained).

I agree with problems of abuse. The issue that I spoke of recently of being attacked online has been to do with such events. I can understand how in certain situations someone may be unwilling to come forward for fear of being attacked. However, in my opinion, any business that does it has pretty much shown themselves to be extremely unethical (and in some cases, illegal) anyway.

Sadly enough, people like this continue on regardless because they just shut up shop and start again.

The frustrating thing is, that yes while there is 'bigger fish to fry' out there, many thousands of people can and do get scammed because they don't know better and/or when they make a complaint there's "nothing that can be done". It's particularly rife in the arts world, where the police are likely to do something for a multi-million dollar painting being stolen but very little for the artists whose work is undersold because they're not aware of their rights (a literal example from home: Indigenous Australians battle constantly to get their fair share of the money made from their artwork) and/or are promised something they don't get.

So on the one hand I can understand not wanting to do something; and on the other hand, if people keep silent, it continues.

Note: my comments above have nothing to do with any puppetry company, so I'm not suggesting anything untoward with either OWS or Puppet Productions. Just sharing my experience.

... Ok, shutting up now because this one will definitely make me rant more than usual.