STEPHEN JONES:
Well, we’ve introduced a bill into parliament, which will ensure that Australia is the toughest place in the world to scammers to make a dollar. It’ll put new strong obligations on banks, telecommunications companies, social media platforms to keep their customers and their networks safe from these financial criminals who are ripping billions of dollars from Australians every year. This is necessary because when we came into government, scams were doubling every year. Three billion dollars worth of losses when we came into government, if we’d had situation normal, Australians would have lost $6 billion a year. That didn’t happen because we put emergency actions in place by standing up a national anti‑scam centre and working to ensure we put better protections in place. But the provisions in this bill are the next step to keep Australian safe.
Today we’ll find out what the position of the coalition is. They’ve only got 2 choices. Are they going to delay the bill and back the scammers? Or are they going to keep Australians money safe and their information safe? Every day that there is a delay, Australians are losing $7 million. So by the end of the week, $50 million. By the time parliament comes back next year, nearly half a billion dollars, and every one of those dollars will be on Peter Dutton’s head if he doesn’t work with the government to ensure that this bill moves through parliament and moves through parliament in the next fortnight. It really is a test for Peter Dutton. I mean, he was the person who oversaw border protection and cyber security when he was a minister in the former government, and on his watch, scams doubled every year. $3 billion worth of losses. This is his opportunity to correct that mistake. This is his opportunity to show that he could be tough in parliament and not just in the tele. If you’re going to be tough on crime, you got to be tough on financial crime, because financial crime is the crime and the touches every Australian. It’s the crime that sees Australians being bombarded by SMS messages and bogus phone calls and having their bank accounts exposed to scammers. So if Peter Dutton really wants to be tough on crime, he’ll back this bill. He can’t be tough on tele and weak in the parliament, so this is Peter Dutton’s opportunity to stand up and do what matters. Back Australians, back this bill, ensure that it is law by Christmas. Happy to take your questions.
JOURNALIST:
Have you had any indication of what the opposition thinks of this bill so far?
JONES:
We’ll know in a few hours’ time. We’ve had crickets from them at the moment, I’ve offered them over the last 2 months, briefings on this, that has not yet been taken up. So I know that this bill has strong support throughout the community, has the support of the consumer groups. It’s time for Peter Dutton to back Australians and to help them to keep their money safe. $7 million dollars, every day we delay and every one of those dollars will be on Peter Dutton’s head. So he can delay, he can kick this out into the next year, so it’ll be half a billion dollars lost or he can back Australians and back this bill.
JOURNALIST:
Turning to financial advice, the AFR’s reported this morning that the how you pay for advice is likely to be a sticking point in passing any legislation on this. What’s your response to that?
JONES:
I read that article with some amusement, the AFR wrote a story about what I thought on financial advice without asking me what I thought on financial advice. I’m very confident that the government will put forward a comprehensive legislative reform package, which will close the advice gap. Which will ensure that those 5 million Australians who are either at or approaching time will have access to the sorts of information in advice that they need, that we’ll be able to rebuild the financial advice and information industry again, and that there will be safe doors for Australians to work through, and it’s related to this agenda, by the way. It’s related to the scams agenda because at the moment Australians are going to TikTok and Instagram and uncle Bob at the barbecue for their financial advice. They need to have professional reliable, affordable advice available to them. I’m very confident that we’ll have a bill in parliament which gains broad support of industry and should enjoy broad support of the parliament.
JOURNALIST:
If that fee structure does turn out to be a sticking point, is that something you’re willing to change your current stance on to get the rest through?
JONES:
I am very confident, very confident that we’ll have a bill which is in the public interest and enjoys the broad support of the entire industry.
JOURNALIST:
Would that bill change the fee structure though? That’s not answering.
JONES:
Very confident that we’ll bring a bill before the parliament which will have broad support and the message to the entire industry is this. Let’s not get hung up on minor details. We are going to bring a bill forward, which is in public interest, which is ensuring that we have safe, reliable, affordable advice, which ensures that the financial advice profession can flourish, which ensures that funds can provide safe and simple information and advice to their members, which deals with the legitimate interests, every group, but most importantly and the most important group in all this is everyday Australians who are currently locked out of affordable advice.
JOURNALIST:
If the fee structure is a minor detail, like you just suggested –
JONES:
I didn’t suggest the fee issues are a minor detail. You’ll see all of it when we release the draft information. People shouldn’t be indulging in wild speculation and won’t have to wait much longer. We will produce a bill, which ensures that we have a wide support of industry, which has consumers at the centre of it, maintains the public interest, undoes a whole of the mess that we inherited from the former government who over 9 years did nothing. This is a point, I want to remind you, for 9 years, the coalition presided over a bin fire of public policy, bin fire of public policy. They let the system unroll, saw over 15,000 financial advisors leave the industry without a plan on how to deal with the information gap, without a plan to deal with the financial advice gap and now they have the temerity to say, Labor is going through a collaborative detailed careful process to ensure we get the details right. We will get the details right. I will have our draft bill out shortly, and I can guarantee you that we’ll have broad support of industry and the most importantly, you will deal with the public interest of getting more information and advice to those Australians who need it.
JOURNALIST:
Minister, just on a separate issue, you told the Pacific Banking Forum earlier this year that the government was working hard to keep Australian banks in the region and to slop declining corresponding banking. The Treasurer said last week that they’re close to a deal now with ANZ to keep ANZ in the Pacific. Are you still involved within them of these ongoing negotiations? And can you shed any light on what sort of incentives the government can offer big Australian banks like ANZ to keep them in the region? Are we offering to indemnify some of the risks associated with AML restrictions, for example, why, how can the government keep them in the region?
JONES:
Really important that Australia works with our Pacific partners to ensure that they maintain correspondent banking services within the Pacific. It involves Australia, and Australian banks, but also importantly it involves the US and US banks. So you’re right, we did convene a conference of the principles in Brisbane earlier this year. Importantly with high level representations from the US government and US banks. We’re working closely with industry and Pacific Island nations. The biggest contribution that the Australian Government can make is to ensure that the AML and know your customer provisions are uplifted and we are doing that. And the biggest contribution that we can make is to ensure that we have convene the discussions between our banks and the Pacific Island leaders to maintain their services and I’m very, very confident that we’ll achieve those objectives. It will be in our national interest and it will be in the economic and national interest of Pacific Island brothers and sisters.
JOURNALIST:
Minister how long will we have to wait to see the government’s plans to the News Media Bargaining Code? Are you still considering designating Meta under that framework or is that, I guess framework something that needs to change that new plans, what’s the latest can you update on that?
JONES:
I said a few months ago of the News Media Bargaining Code that it was a perfectly acceptable tool to deal with the problems and the situation in 2021, but just replaying the real on 2021 won’t get the same result in 2024. So we’ve been working, collaboratively and a lot of detail with industry, with publishers and inside government, to ensure that we will have this tools to work in 2024 and we are very near to the position we’ll be able explain to you, keenly interested in that in the press gallery. But more importantly to the broader Australian community.
JOURNALIST:
Will we see it this year?
JONES:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
Stephen this Scams Code was recommended by the ACCC back in 2022. I mean, one of the other major recommendations of that report was the competition codes, the ex‑ante codes. 12 months ago, the government kind of committed in principle to progressing those. Is the government still committed to that? And are you gonna make an announcement that soon?
JONES:
Yes, still committed to that. And I’ll have more to say about that in the context of our other reforms within the digital industry in the very near future. And I take this as an opportunity, just note. You’ve seen over the last 6 months, a significant amount of activity in this area, and we’re doing it in a considered and deliberate way, and the recommendation that you point to, which we’ve accepted in principle, is a key part of that protection.