Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wonder how many have seen the newest ad campaign, with the bloke about to send a deposit for a lounge online when a little voice—which is his own—on his shoulder makes him stop. There's the lady being asked about her bank details whose voice says she should check and the bloke who's been told his account is overdrawn who listens to the voice telling him it's a dodgy email and shouldn't he protect himself. This is part of a new campaign, the Fighting Scams Campaign, which includes TV commercials and social media ads that are running now. They're designed to equip Australians with simple, actionable strategies to guard against scams—things like, 'Stop before you share your personal information,' 'Check that you know exactly who you're dealing with' and 'Protect yourself against scams by taking actions, like reporting them to Scamwatch.' I think it's a really useful ad.

Of course, we have tools like that and the Little Book of Scams, which I've been sharing far and wide in my community. But the Albanese government's work on scams goes way beyond simply raising awareness and asking people to take responsibility. Scammers are clever, cunning and criminal, and our comprehensive plan is about making Australia the toughest target in the world for scammers. This includes having everyone doing their bit, whether it's government, business or individuals.

When you mention the word 'scams' in the community, it doesn't take much for stories of fear and trepidation to come tumbling out. Whether it's a young person, a busy mum, a dad on the sporting sideline, a retiree or even my own husband and mum, everyone has a story of an attempted scam that they headed off at the pass. What is really distressing though is where the scam wasn't avoided, and the tales of lost money or ongoing financial loss—which started with a dodgy Facebook ad, an email that looked legitimate, text messages that sounded credible or a phone call that you'd swear was the real thing—are just gut wrenching. Anyone can be a target of a scammer. Whether you're 20 or 70, we know everyone should stay scam alert.

The Albanese government has made scams a priority because we get the financial and emotional turmoil that victims face, and we want to rid Australia of this scourge. Since being elected, the government's committed more than $180 million to combatting scams and online fraud. Our actions to date are helping keep people's money safe, with our prevention strategy showing some early signs of success. Losses have been almost cut in half since we stood up the National Anti-Scam Centre. Scamwatch data shows reported scam losses dropped by more than 40 per cent in the 2023-24 financial year compared to the previous year. This bill, the Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024, is a vital next step, putting obligations on banks, social media companies and telcos to prevent scams or to face hefty fines and compensation for victims. It means that banks, social media platforms and telecommunication companies will have their responsibilities, and victims will have clear pathways to compensation if the businesses fail to meet those new standards.

I want to take a moment in discussing scams to pay tribute to the Assistant Treasurer for the years of work that he's done in this area. I think I had the first scam forum in the country at the Windsor Wharf in the Hawkesbury just before the 2022 election, where local Hawkesbury residents shared with us some of their bad experiences and near misses. I think what was interesting about that forum is that it also drew people from the Blue Mountains part of my electorate who had been so badly impacted they wanted to travel to be part of it. For me that was one of the really galvanising events, where you could see that every single person had either already been impacted or deeply feared being impacted by scams. They were thirsty for tools to help keep themselves safe. It also highlighted for me that an individual can only do so much and that the system had to change so there were protections and punishments for poor practices that led to someone being scammed.

As I said, there have been positive signs from the government's and industry's efforts to date to combat scams, but scam losses remain unacceptably high. In 2023 scammers stole $2.7 billion from Australians, and scammers continue to cause psychological and emotional harm for victims and their families. Current scam protections are piecemeal and inconsistent across the economy, and consumers face inconsistent protections and responses across different industries and providers. This Scams Prevention Framework being introduced is world-leading legislation. It's a central part of our broader consumer protection agenda. I'm going to call the Scams Prevention Framework the SPF—think of sunscreen, providing you with a protective layer. It's a bit like that. It's an economy-wide reform to protect consumers from scams by requiring the private sector to adhere to consistent principle based obligations and strong tailored industry codes which are enforceable. This approach will ensure that incentives and obligations are in place across key sectors that we know scammers take advantage of to cause harm to people in the community. This framework will ensure that all parts of the ecosystem used by scammers are held to account for implementing strong and effective protections that are specifically tailored to their sector and their role in the conduct of a scam. This is essential for the protection of consumers, as it's really common for scammers to use multiple platforms and services to deceive and steal from people.

Under this bill, regulated entities will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent, detect, report, disrupt and respond to scams and to have governance arrangements in place relating to how they will protect consumers from scams. There'll be mandatory sector-specific codes—a sector-specific code, even if adopted, does not relieve a business from their obligations to take reasonable steps in all circumstances, recognising that scams constantly evolve, so businesses must constantly evolve in their responses as well.

Banks, telecommunication providers and certain digital platforms offering social media, paid search advertising and direct messaging services will initially be designated under the SPF, as they represent key points of harm—where the harm begins for consumers. It's interesting to note that bank transfer was the most reported method used by scammers, with $212.9 million in reported losses in 2023. Phone calls and social media were the contact methods associated with the highest value of losses, $116 million and $93.5 million respectively in 2023. Other sectors may be designated under the SPF in future, such as superannuation, cryptocurrency, online marketplaces and other payment providers.

Now, I want to pause and reflect on the breadth of this legislation and highlight some evidence that I took from Meta at the social media inquiry that I was a member of. At that inquiry last year, I was extremely disappointed to hear from Meta that they did not feel they had responsibility for the scam ads that people pay them to have on their platform. These ads can be the first part of a scam; that can be where it starts. Meta argued in their evidence to us that they bore no responsibility, because the taking of someone's money happened off their platform, further down the line. So they were happy to take money from people who, it could be argued, were pretty obviously scammers or potential scammers, but they had nothing to do with any downstream impacts where other people lost money to these same advertisers.

That's one of the reasons why we need a comprehensive approach and we need multiple regulators involved, and this legislation provides for just that, a multiregulator model, involving the ACCC as the regulator for the principle based obligations and the ACCC, ASIC and ACMA as regulators for the sector-specific codes so that they capitalise on the existing industry knowledge and expertise each of those regulators has. It also ensures that no single regulator will be spread too thin as SPF expands to additional sectors as scam activity inevitably shifts. Regulators have access to significant civil penalties of up to $50 million for the very worst breaches of the SPF. This is designed to incentivise compliance and make sure it's not simply easier to pay the penalty. Regulators will also have other compliance tools available, such as infringement notices, enforceable undertakings, injunctions, public warnings and remedial directions to ensure the SPF is administered as intended—to protect consumers.

Consumers, for their part, will have access to free and transparent dispute resolution processes if they are victims of scams and one or more regulated entities have not met their obligations. There also needs to be internal dispute resolution at the regulated entities and a process in place at each of them, and they must become members of a designated external dispute resolution scheme. There will be a no-wrong-door policy for internal dispute processes, so, rather than being shunted around from regulator to regulator, consumers can approach any of the regulated entities connected to the scam they've experienced to raise a dispute. We want to make it easy for people to pursue that. We've already announced our intention to authorise the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA, as the external dispute resolution scheme for the three initial sectors. This single-door approach means consumers only have to go to one body to escalate their scam complaint, even where it may involve multiple regulated entities.

The government has not taken a mandatory presumption-of-reimbursement approach as operates in the UK, because we want to incentivise actions to address scam activity across the entire scam activity chain, not leave some sectors with lower expectations and lower responsibility for the liability. Placing liability on banks alone fails to recognise and hold to account the entities that may have had opportunities to stop the scam before the harm is caused to the consumer.

Consumers will also be able to take action in court when they've suffered loss or damage because a regulated entity hasn't met its obligations under the SPF. As with the intention for the external dispute resolution, liability for loss or damage where more than one regulated entity has not met obligations can be apportioned between multiple regulated entities. So this is about shifting the responsibility, ensuring everyone at every point takes responsibility for the things that they could do.

This is the start. There is work to do throughout the year once this bill is passed, and I hope it will be. What this bill does do is ensure that we deliver on the pre-election promise that we made, including to the people of the Hawkesbury at the forum at the Windsor Wolves footy club that the Assistant Treasurer attended. We made a promise that we would do everything we could to protect the community from scammers. This is a really significant step that gives Australia a world-leading framework to be able to do just that—to keep consumers safe.

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