Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese Labor government have shown disdain for the digital economy in many aspects but one of the most important is their conspicuous failure to deliver on the Consumer Data Right, which was an important micro economic reform initiated under the previous coalition government. The Consumer Data Right allows consumers to safely share the data that businesses hold about them. It helps consumers compare between products and services to find offers that best meet their needs. It encourages competition between providers, leading to more innovative products and services. It is an opt-in service—nobody is compelled to use it—and it is buttressed by strict privacy and security provisions.

The Consumer Data Right already operates in the banking and energy sectors, thanks to the hard work and heavy lifting done by the previous coalition government. So if you are a banking customer—and let's face it, just about every Australian is—you can use the Consumer Data Right to find a bank with a product or service that best suits your needs, and you do that by authorising your data, showing personal history of transactions, payments, receipts, to be made available to such banks as you authorise and allow in turn for it to be determined which bank has the best product or service to meet your needs.

We on this side saw great value in the Consumer Data Right. We invested $$111.3 million to accelerate the rollout of it as part of our digital economy strategy. According to a recent report by Fintech Australia and MasterCard, 99 per cent of all bank accounts are connected to the Consumer Data Right. Unfortunately, though, under this Labor government, the project has stalled. As The Mandarin, the online news publication, reported last year, the Albanese government had quietly applied the handbrake to the expansion of the Consumer Data Right and the plans to take it into the superannuation sector, the insurance sector and telecommunications sector. Those plans, sadly, are now on pause, even though the project received $88 million in the 2023-24 federal budget. This is very disappointing.

As an insight into what is at stake, a report released earlier this year by Deloitte entitled Consumer Data Evolution: Empowering Australia's Future, argued that the industry would be $16.7 billion larger by 2043 if the Consumer Data Right were to be expanded beyond the banking and energy sectors. The report also estimates that there would be 46,800 additional jobs generated due to the combined effect of greater competition and innovation by enabling cross-sector data sharing.

This poor performance by Labor is disappointing but not entirely surprising. This is, after all, a government that does not have a digital economy strategy. It does not have a minister for the digital economy. Nor is it entirely surprising that the minister with responsibility in this area is the deeply underwhelming Assistant Treasurer and financial services minister, the member for Whitlam. He is not known for his passionate commitment to reforming energy. In fact, just about every project he is involved in has hurdles and roadblocks, such as the Modernising Businesses Registers program, which he axed last year, a program which sought to save business owners time and money by consolidating a range of business and company registers. The decision to abolish that program is very much to the detriment of Australia's much-needed digital transformation and our digital economy.

Now, when he delivered his second reading speech last year for the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill, the member for Whitlam referred to the consumer data right as a game changer, and that is in fact an accurate statement of its potential. But has the potential been realised under this hapless and inept minister? Absolutely not. He's deployed all of his experience as a former trade union official, one of the many who infest the opposition benches—

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed—one of so many who bring no relevant knowledge of and familiarity with the kinds of digital transformation issues that it is so necessary to pursue. It's perhaps not surprising that a survey of financial advisers last year found the member for Whitlam to be the worst performing minister out of the last six to hold the portfolio. So I say to this government and I say to the member for Whitlam: improve your dismal performance and get on with the digital transformation of our economy.