Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, back in black, Member for Bennelong. So when our government speaks to the financial position of the country, when we come to the Australian people and explain to them the way that we are managing the economic challenges that our country faces, we do so with honesty and integrity. We delivered a small surplus, but there are challenges on the horizon. We have been upfront about that. We haven't tried to sugar-coat it or dress up a decade of budget deficit in egotism and cheap giftshop paraphernalia.

When it comes to consumer affairs more broadly—and this is the very serious crux of where some of our financial literacy challenges lie—we have had a laser-like focus on improving consumer protections and creating safe and well-regulated financial markets. This has been part of a broader effort. We're boosting education. We're boosting awareness. We're bringing Australians along on the journey with us to understand the risks that they face when there are predatory players in the market.

After this decade of denial, delay and neglect, we've had to clean up this mess that was left by the Liberals. We've done more for Australian consumers in just one year than the last government did in nine years. In fact, we've done more in the last fortnight. In this budget, we brought forward an $86.5 million package to combat scams and online fraud, including $58 million for the ACCC to set up the National Anti-Scam Centre. As well as its work bringing together expertise from across government and the private sector to detect and deter scams, the NASC will drive consumer awareness and, importantly, education to ensure that consumers are better able to protect themselves from scams and improve their financial literacy along the way.

This package also includes funding to address scam SMSs. They can lead to huge financial losses, as we know. We all know somebody who has been preyed upon in that regard. The fighting scams package will address the massive problem where last year $3 billion was lost to scams by Australians. That's grown fivefold since 2020. The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments left Australians to fend for themselves against scammers. In particular, they ignored the explosion in scams brought on by the pandemic.

On Monday, we announced reform to the regulation of 'buy now, pay later' to protect vulnerable consumers from the risks of unregulated credit products and unaffordable lending. These are real interventions being made by the Albanese government, in stark contrast to the failure and neglect of the previous government that is most pertinently exemplified by their trillion dollars of Liberal debt. (Time expired)

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