Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Government's:

(1) rushed, half-finished and last-minute approach to legislating its scams prevention policy; and

(2) failure to control homegrown inflation and address the cost-of-living crisis is leaving Australians more vulnerable to scams".

The Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024 establishes a legislative framework to require designated sectors to prevent and respond to scams. The concept of a scams prevention framework is broadly supported in principle by all stakeholders, including the proposed regulated sectors, which would be banks, telcos and digital platforms.

Taking action on scams is also something the coalition supports. Scam losses have increased exponentially in recent years, with losses for Australian consumers of $2.7 billion reported in 2023. The latest ACCC data also suggests scam losses have started trending up again since May. That is a huge amount stolen from Australians, often by overseas criminals, and it destroys lives and families. I know there are even people in this place, members of parliament or senators, who have themselves been victims of scams, so Australians must be vigilant. The scams are becoming more sophisticated.

We agree there must be a minimum standard in place and a consistent approach to how banks, telcos and digital platforms act. The coalition has acted in good faith and waited patiently for the government to bring this forward. We have not politicised it or drawn attention to the delays. Unfortunately, the legislation served up to us today is rushed and half-finished. It is another example of the government leaving legislating these priorities until the last minute. The most important protections are still yet to be drafted, and it is looking impossible for the full framework to be operational before an election is called.

The Albanese government promised sector specific mandatory codes but has not delivered them. The Albanese government promised a simple redress mechanism for consumers but has not delivered it. Delivering the best model to protect Australians from scams should have come ahead of the minister's attempt to save face by rushing this bill into parliament.

I will say that there are features of the design that we agree with. Firstly, the whole-of-ecosystem approach is supported. The scam attack chain is complex, and focusing on where there is the most risk across banks, telcos and digital platforms is a sensible idea. Secondly, while consumers should have simple access to redress, I agree a mandatory or automatic reimbursement model is not the right approach. The proposed three-year statutory review will provide a good opportunity to assess whether this model is working, and that is also something we strongly support.

I commend the minister for bringing legislation on this issue to parliament today, even if we believe it's a bit late. This is something that the minister clearly cares about. We've had 14 media releases from the minister on scams just this calendar year and a Press Club address which seemed to indicate that this legislation was going to be released, but unfortunately it took another three months to surface. You could describe the minister as a single-issue minister in the sense that, with his singular focus on this, at the expense of broader portfolio responsibilities, there has been a lot of talk but not a lot actually coming through the parliament as Australians have been left waiting for too long for the Albanese government to follow through on many of the announcements on scams. This was an election commitment from the Albanese government. It's unfortunate that, after taking 28 months in government to get their act together, this has now been done in a rushed, half-finished and last-minute manner.

Given that this is something that is often spoken about by the government and the minister as a top priority, it hasn't necessarily been treated that way. This delay serves as an example of the government's legislative priorities that aren't often clear and of de-prioritisation of legislation within the Treasury portfolio under the minister's watch. While this legislation has finally made it here into the House of Reps today, the same can't be said of many of the other priorities in financial services.

Time is running out. The runway for new legislation has likely already closed, given there will be an election next year. Items like tranche 2 of the Levy financial advice reforms have been too late and are at risk of falling apart. A licensing framework for payment service providers' stored-value facilities and stablecoins is nowhere to be seen. A licensing framework for digital assets platforms seems to have been abandoned, and ASIC is making policy via litigation. Buy-now, pay-later regulation remains stranded in the Senate, leaving CDR, or consumer data right, legislation to languish in parliament for almost two years, and the financial services regulatory grid has completely stalled.

The Albanese government is more focused on announcements than follow-through. We've seen it more and more recently with the government's plan for a plan and thought bubble policy announcements completely lacking in detail, dominating rather than delivering on initiatives that they promised prior to the last election which are now 2½ years late. This process has been sloppy, and it serves as an example of the direction that this government is going in. They are already more focused on starting their election campaigning for May next year—we've seen with ministers during question time—rather than governing and getting some of the items through that I mentioned. The government needs to wake up. You're in government, and the election is not until May next year. An announcement is different from follow-through. The work still needs to be done.

There are good intentions with this bill, intentions the opposition supports, but good intentions don't always equal good policy-making or good legislation. The consultation on this legislation has been unnecessarily rushed. As I've already said, the government took 28 months to come up with this and then ran a shortened three-week consultation period on the draft legislation. The bill was then turned around for introduction four weeks later, with little of the consultation feedback incorporated as a result.

This is complex legislation. These aren't minor amendments without a regulatory burden that can be rammed through without scrutiny. Every stakeholder I talk to is disappointed by the slapdash approach. It's no surprise that a recent freedom of information release revealed that the government gave special treatment to the banks, particularly to the ABA, to conduct special hothouse, targeted consultation sessions. Other regulated sectors claim this opportunity was not afforded to them, and aspects of the final design were a surprise. I don't begrudge the banks for this. They have every right to have input and argue for their interests, but it is the government's responsibility to ensure there is proper, meaningful consultation and that all of the sectors that face significant penalties for breaching this scheme have at least some input.

I'm seriously concerned about the impact of the secretive approach to consultation that the Albanese government has made the norm, particularly over the last 12 months. We are seeing this again with the development of the second tranche of the Levy financial advice reforms. The government has started up another hothouse for selected stakeholders in secret, all bound by nondisclosure agreements. As we have seen with this scams legislation, I'm sure that the government will again lob draft legislation on financial advice reforms out for another shortened consultation period and ignore the majority of the advice community that has been excluded. Then the government will again wonder why nobody is standing with them to endorse it.

Although the government truncated consultation and some stakeholders couldn't even make a submission in the time provided, the feedback that was provided was critical. The bill has been described as rushed, heavy-handed, complex, unclear and stacked against consumers. For context, I note the bill has three key aspects: (1) enforceable, principles based obligations in the primary legislation which apply to each sector once designated, with the ACCC as a responsible regulator; (2) a regulation-making power for the minister to designate sectors and regulators; and (3) a regulation-making power for the minister to make mandatory, sector-specific codes with prescriptive obligations. So, once this legislation is enacted, the government will have to consult on and make sector designation instruments and the mandatory codes.

Despite being Minister Jones's top priority, this bill has been left to the last six months of the term at best and is unlikely to be fully operational before the election. These delays haven't been caused by the opposition. It hasn't been the Liberal and National parties which have caused these delays. We had been given just a week before the debate resumed.

A significant amount of stakeholder feedback has focused on the uncertainty created by the use of broad, overarching obligations in the primary legislation which require taking 'reasonable steps'. In previous stages of consultation, the government's focus was on prescriptive obligations contained in sector-specific mandatory codes which clearly outline the practical minimum standards expected for each sector.

With these codes still yet to be developed, the government has instead created these principle based obligations with significant civil penalties attached in the primary legislation, which I assume will eventually be supplemented by codes. The regulated sectors say it is difficult to understand how these obligations will be interpreted—

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I thank the honourable shadow assistant minister. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.