Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are being scammed out of billions of dollars every year, and the big banks hardly seem to care. When criminals raid our bank accounts and we ask for help, the banks turn their back. No-one is safe from these increasingly sophisticated scammers, especially when it's virtually impossible to live and work without a bank account. Small businesses, pensioners, families, teenagers have all fallen victim. From 2022 to 2023, Australians lost about $6 billion to scams. At the same time, the big banks made a combined $30 billion in profits. They've got the resources to protect their customers. They just don't want to.

In the next parliament, One Nation will introduce a bill for a scam victim protection law. Except in cases of gross negligence by account holders, banks will be required to refund scam victims up to $165,000 within five days. The bill will include heavy penalties for banks which fail to act, incentivising them to invest more resources in fraud protection. The United Kingdom has recently introduced a similar law. Why hasn't Australia? It is because Labor and the coalition are too weak to stand up to the big, big banks. They will always side with the big end of town. One Nation stands for the people, the Australians, who are sick of being ripped off. Australian voters have some stark choices ahead of them at the election. If they want someone to take on the banks and stop the scammers, they need to back One Nation.