Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to commend the important work that our National Anti-Scam Centre has been undertaking since its creation by the federal Labor government in 2023. As many of you would know, Australians were losing over $3 billion each year to scammers before the National Anti-Scam Centre was created. Australians were losing money to intricate scams online, over the phone and via email. Locally, scams are a significant issue on the Central Coast, and, in my electorate of Robertson, we saw around $2 million taken from our community by scammers in 2023.

Following on from the federal Labor government's $86.5 million investment to crack down on scammers and to establish the National Anti-Scam Centre, I am pleased to see the government is helping to reduce the number of Australians that are affected by scams. The second quarterly report released this month by the National Anti-Scam Centre shows that losses in the October to December 2023 quarter have almost halved compared to the same period in 2022. This result is an outstanding achievement, and the trend has begun to move in a welcome downward direction.

Across Australia, there were 67,116 scam reports registered with Scamwatch in the October to December 2023 quarter. This equated to Australians being scammed out of $82 million in that quarter, with investment scams representing the most common scam type in the country. It is imperative that Australians report a scam to Scamwatch when it is encountered. This way, the National Anti-Scam Centre can use its sophisticated tools to disrupt the scammers from continuing to operate.

The National Anti-Scam Centre is a world-leading partnership between government, law enforcement and the private sector that uses cutting-edge technology to disrupt scams before they reach consumers. The National Anti-Scam Centre also focuses on raising community awareness to help arm people with tips and tools to help protect them from scammers in the community.

Last year, I was pleased to host Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, at an antiscams forum in my electorate of Robertson. My office has been receiving increasing levels of correspondence from our community about scammers targeting older and vulnerable people on the Central Coast. It was important that my office was able to provide an opportunity for those in our community who wanted to learn about how to better identify scams and subsequently avoid being scammed. The antiscams forum took place at the Davistown RSL Club and attracted over 300 people from across the electorate and beyond. I'm sure that, if there were no capacity constraints on the event, we would have seen even more people in attendance, as we had to stop accepting RSVPs due to capacity. The forum was informative and it was an opportunity for me and the minister to speak directly with concerned members of my community and to impart a range of effective strategies to combat scammers, supported by the National Anti-Scam Centre. Those attending were also able to ask questions of me and the minister and receive a useful little resource from the National Anti-Scam Centre, fittingly titled The Little Black Book of Scams.

Fast forward to now, and my office, in partnership with Minister Stephen Jones's office, will again host another antiscams forum in my electorate of Robertson. This time the forum will take place in Umina Beach, at the Ocean Beach Surf Life Saving Club, and invitations will be sent to people right across the peninsula, including to Woy Woy, Umina Beach, Ettalong Beach, Blackwall, Pearl Beach, and Patonga. I look forward to facilitating another highly successful and informative forum which will raise the awareness of scams and arm people with the knowledge to combat scammers.

The federal Labor government remains committed to combating scams across Australia and on the Central Coast. I would encourage people within the electorate of Robertson to contact my office should they be interested in attending the upcoming forum. Additionally, if they would like to receive resources about how to better identify and avoid scams, please contact my office, and that includes, as I mentioned earlier, the The Little Black Book of Scams.

I would also like to thank the hardworking public servants who work at the National Anti-Scam Centre and are helping win the battle against scammers on behalf of the Australian people. As I have said, this is a huge issue not just on the Central Coast but also right across Australia. The numbers are trending in the right direction, but we can't become complacent. We have to make sure that we are armed with the tools and the information necessary to stop these criminals in their tracks and make sure Australians can keep their hard-earned money.

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