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

No matter who you are or where you are, scams hurt. When the Albanese government came to office, Australians were losing more than $3 billion a year to scams. The opposition had sat on their hands and done nothing while scam losses doubled and doubled again. That trend has now flipped thanks to the tough approach Labor has taken, with scam losses reducing for the first time in nearly a decade—down by half a billion dollars in 2023 compared to 2022.

It's down, but it's still way too high. We know anyone can be the victim of a scam. ASIC has found that, while recent data suggests Australians are becoming better at identifying and reporting scams, we need continued focus across industry and regulators to effectively tackle this insidious issue. We're doing more. We invested another $67.5 million in the recent budget to combat scams and online fraud. One change will be industry-specific mandatory codes to hold every industry to account with heavy penalties and strong regulator enforcement if they're non-compliant. We'll start with banks, telcos and digital platforms. They'll be required to have measures in place to prevent, detect, disrupt, stop and report scams. Remember this: if you fear you're being scammed, speak up and seek help.