Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

SPENDER () (): My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Organised crime syndicates are scamming households, who are losing life-changing sums of money, including in Wentworth. Ninety-four per cent of scam losses are borne by individuals and only six per cent by banks. This is despite banks having greater tools at their disposal to stop scams. Does the minister think consumers are responsible for and have the ability to prevent 94 per cent of scam losses? If not, will you take action to make sure banks and other companies pay for losses in proportion to their ability to prevent them?

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wentworth for the question and for her ongoing engagement on this issue. I will also take the opportunity to thank my colleague the Minister for Communications on the work that we have been doing together, a team effort to ensure that we keep Australians' money safe and their information safe. Earlier today I introduced the new Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024 into the parliament. When legislated, it will ensure that Australia is the toughest country in the world for these multinational crime syndicates that the member for Wentworth refers to to make a dollar. That is our objective—to ensure Australians are kept safe and that this becomes the toughest country in the world for the criminals to prey upon Australians.

I am asked about the approach we have taken and how it differs from other approaches. I have to say that it is in this particular regard that we differ from the approach of our predecessors. The approach under our predecessors was, if you get scammed, you are a mug and you are on your own. They were soft on financial crime, they were soft on financial criminals and, as a result, scam losses on their watch doubled and then doubled and then doubled again.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will pause. The member for Wentworth was on her feet before the member for Wannon. I will hear from her. As the person who has asked the question, they shall have the first right to take a point of order.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order is on relevance. I didn't ask about alternative approaches; I asked specifically about the losses borne by consumers versus the losses borne by banks and their ability to prevent them.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For consistency, the member for Wentworth is correct. Under the Speaker's direction, I will ask the minister to refrain from talking about alternative approaches or policies and to return to the question.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The focus of our legislation, and the focus of the question, is around how we prevent scams occurring in the first place and, when they do occur, how we ensure the victims are compensated. That's the whole focus of the legislation: it introduces tough new obligations. These obligations will fall upon banks and also upon telecommunications companies and social media platforms, and I'll return to this point in a moment. These tough obligations are to ensure that they are keeping their customers safe. They are obligations to prevent scams, obligations to detect scams, obligations to disrupt scams, obligations to report scams and obligations to ensure that they are responding, including responding to their customers to ensure that their money and their information is safe.

I agree with the member for Wentworth that not nearly enough is being done by banks to ensure that their customers are being kept safe and that their customers are getting compensated for losses. That is a core feature of our scheme. There are clear paths for remediation and clear paths for compensation. But we do not accept the approach that has been pushed by some others—that we should let social media platforms off the hook. Two out of every three scams originate from an ad published on a social media platform. Meta, in and of itself, is the single biggest advertiser of criminal scams in the world. They're not a start-up. In Australia they made between $5 billion and $6 billion last year alone. So, yes, we need to keep the banks on the hook and keep the banks responsible for their part in the harms, but we should also be ensuring that big social media companies like Meta are kept to account as well.