CAROL BROWN:
Every day scammers are taking money out of the pockets of hard working Australians. We’re all familiar with and experienced with scammers sending text messages, emails, phone calls, social media. In fact, in 2022 Australians were – lost over $3 billion in 2022 alone. And that’s why it’s so pleasing to have Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, here in Hobart to conduct a scams forum and also hosted by Senator Catryna Bilyk, who has been involved in cyber security committees for a number of years now.
So, I’m going to hand over to Stephen, and he will talk to you about what people that have come along to the scam forum can hope to benefit from that and how they can better protect themselves and also talk about what the Albanese Labor government is doing to protect Australians. Stephen.
STEPHEN JONES:
Thanks so much Carol and Catryna, for inviting me here to Hobart today. Great to be here. I want to thank Senator Bilyk for the leadership she showed in the last parliament chairing the cyber security committee, many of the recommendations of which we are running with in this government. And when we came into government we saw scams running out of control and households and small businesses left to fight on their own. $3 billion nationally lost in the last 12 months, around a quarter of a million complaints to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – that is understated. We know that only 13 per cent of scams actually get reported.
We want to change all of that. We’re a government that is taking scams, consumer fraud, seriously. In the last budget alone investing $86 million to stand up a new national anti‑scam centre inside the ACCC, taking the fight up to the scammers, the criminals, the frauders who are ripping millions of dollars out of the pockets of Australians.
In the first four months of this year alone $3.6 million has been stolen from Tasmanians. That’s over two and a half thousand individual scams. We know that that’s actually the tip of the iceberg. So many don’t report it. Romance scams, investment scams, invoice interception scams, impersonations – all of them are people being ripped off by criminals, and we’re going to treat it seriously. It should be treated with the same level of seriousness that we would treat somebody who held up a petrol station or a bank, because the effect is the same.
Our national anti‑scam centre will ensure that for the first time when a scam is reported in real time we’ll be able to send information to the banks, to the telecommunications companies, to the social media platforms, to put a flag on bank accounts, to shut the communications channels down, to have websites, dodgy websites, pulled down and ensuring that we are moving quickly.
We’re also going to be setting up new fusion cells, like a hit squad. Experts coming together, going after particular scam types and ensuring that we have a comprehensive strategy to close it down. Whether it’s investment scams or romance scams, we’ll be bringing experts from the private sector, from law enforcement, from the regulators from banks and telecommunications companies together, bringing their knowledge, their smarts and their resources to the problem at hand.
A lot of people to say to me, well, what are the banks doing, what are telcos, what are the social media platforms doing? We’ve got to lift the bar and provide much more clarity to consumers. Tough new codes of practice setting out the obligations on banks, on telecommunications companies, on social media platforms so that they are doing their best to protect consumers. And if they don’t meet their obligations, compensation can apply to consumers and fines and penalties can come from the government. We don’t want to do that; we want to ensure that consumers are protected, because that’s our objective.
$3 billion – that’s far too much. A quarter of a million reports in scams going at 80 per cent, increasing at 80 per cent per annum – far too much. So we’re putting a spotlight on the problem. We’re here in Tasmania today, a part of the government’s strategy is to ensure that we can arm consumers with the information that they need. If they only walk away with one message from this – don’t give your information out if you don’t know who you’re giving it to. Don’t press those blue links in the text messages and the email messages to ensure that you’re protecting your information from the criminals who are preying on you.
JOURNALIST:
Is it possible to get justice for the victims of scams, or is it incredibly difficult to prosecute people that are doing scams?
JONES:
We want to ensure that we’re cutting it off at the source so that fewer Australians are being scammed in the first place. Some are going to get through the net, so we want to ensure that we improve the rights to consumers so they know when their business or when the business that they’re dealing is liable and when they’re liable for individuals.
We’re also putting more resources into going after the gangs, whether they’re operating out of Australia or whether they’re operating overseas, myself and my colleague Clare O’Neil, my colleague Mark Dreyfus the Attorney‑General, the Cyber Security Minister and myself are ensuring that we have a big uplift in capacity for the Commonwealth. We’ve appointed a new head person in charge of cyber security. Their job – going after the people, whether they’re here or abroad. Our job – protecting consumers.
JOURNALIST:
Is there a certain demographic falling victim to these scams or could it really just be anyone?
JONES:
The only people who are vulnerable are people who have a mobile phone, an email account, a computer or do online shopping – and that’s all of us. That’s all of us. I like to say when I hold these forums – the only people who are vulnerable are busy people because the scammers love it when people have got two or three things on the go and they catch you on the phone or you’re concentration is diverted. They love that because it means you’re not focusing on the exercise of what you’re doing.
We know that old people lose more money because they’ve got more money. They’re more likely than not to have more superannuation, more savings put aside. So, if you look across the demographics, people over the age of 65 proportionately lose more. It’s also because they’re a target of the scammers as well.
But I don’t want to give anyone the sense that they’re not inside the target because we know young people are inside the target when they’re shopping online. We know everybody is a target when the scammers catch them off‑guard.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think Australians give their personal details and information away too easily these days without checking to make sure a site or a text or a link is safe?
JONES:
There’s a hell of a lot of information that’s floating out there. It’s provided in goodwill through a social media platform, to enter a restaurant or a club or a facility a hell of a lot of personal information is provided and not enough is known about how that’s being kept, whether it’s being kept safely and whether it’s easy for the hackers and the scammers and the criminals to access it, which is why right across government we’ve got a project underway to look at whether the Privacy Act is tough enough and focused enough to deal with information collection and storage and whether the protection – whether it’s government protection or private sector business protection standards – are strong enough as well. Team Australia moment – we all need to lift our game.
JOURNALIST:
We’ve seen at least two scams impacting Tasmanian government departments in recent months. What are you doing to protect people’s data that’s in the hands of State or Federal governments?
JONES:
Well, the first question we need to ask not just in government but right across the economy is: do we need to be storing that information in the first place? And we’re looking at a safer means to collect ID information and to verify information inside government. And once we get that locked down we’ll start looking at whether that’s something we can do right across the economy. But there is no doubt there is too much personal information being collected and stored and not enough knowledge about whether that is being stored safely.
JOURNALIST:
How much of these – to what extent do these scammers just rely on people not knowing enough about, you know, technology and computers? Aren’t they taking advantage of that?
JONES:
Look, I have spoken to the CEOs of, you know, first tier financial institutions. I’ve spoken to people with two or three degrees. And they’ll tell me they’ve been victim of a scam because they just weren’t concentrating. You know, they were dropping the kids off at school. They were in a rush, somebody called them and they thought it was their bank or they thought it was a legitimate organisation and they provided the information. So, I don’t want to give anyone the comfort by saying if you’ve got a few degrees and you know how to use your computer or your mobile phone you’re safe, because that’s not true. But it is true that scammers, particularly during the pandemic and to some extent after the pandemic, are going after people who’ve got a bit of money and maybe are shopping online or doing online commerce or investing for the first time. Prime targets.
SPEAKER:
One more question, please.
JOURNALIST:
Just one question for the senator: I think Brian Harradine a long time ago as part of the Telstra privatisation, he did a deal for these access centres for community access centres in Tasmania. They were initially funded with federal money, but I think, you know, state money funds it now, and they’ve been having trouble, you know, finding funding. Could they be the solution? You know, having these sort of community centres where, you know, people can go to get information about computers and technology and perhaps get advice about this sort of thing?
BROWN:
I’m not completely across Brian Harradine’s deal that he did many decades ago.
JOURNALIST:
It was a long time ago, yes.
BROWN:
But what I would say, there is many – there needs to be many pathways to assist people in them becoming more computer literate, you know, looking at information that comes at them from all different devices as well as what the Albanese Labor government is doing. You’d be surprised at who is getting caught by scams.
I just was on Twitter, I have to say, and Michael Pascoe – many of you may know, a very well‑known TV personality, finance guru – was, in his own words, a couple of keystrokes away from giving out his personal data through an Norton scam that’s going around at the moment. It’s popped up in my own emails. So, you have to be vigilant. And I think the message that Stephen is going to deliver today will be really important for people to stop and think. You always go back to the trusted source. You go back to a bank’s own website. You don’t press on those links. These are the things that you need to do. So it’s very, very easy to fall into a trap, particularly, as Stephen says, you’re short of time, you’ve got more than one thing that you’re doing. And people are very trusting – very trusting.
JOURNALIST:
Yeah, I just would love to hear an example of a very small‑scale scam versus a very big‑scale scam. And also a bit about the barriers to reporting and whether it’s a stigma issue or it’s really hard to find out how to actually do the reporting.
JONES:
I’m hoping that as a result of the work the Albanese government is doing that that reported number of scams for the next 12 months is actually going to go up. Why? Not because I want more people to be scammed, but I want more people to report and provide the information so that we can go after the criminals who are doing this. Because if they’ve had a crack at you, they’re going to have a crack at somebody else as well. So we do need people to report. We do need to share that information.
And I’m sure that Catryna and Carol have had examples come through their offices as I have – romance scams. You know, they break your heart. They have somebody who has met somebody online, and these are often a long play. Somebody will tow them along for two or three months, perhaps with an offer to come and visit them, and “Can you just pay an expense? Can you pay a little bit more?” And you pay a little bit more and all of a sudden they’re up for a few thousand dollars and the romance never happens; it was a scam all along. They’re absolutely heartbreaking when you see that sort of scam go on, and they’re incredibly prevalent, and it’s not just the Nigerian prince with ridiculous offers of wealth. They’re small scale.
I’ve seen investment scams, fake bonds, for example, which are being offered at an industrial scale. Incredibly sophisticated. They look like a legitimate website for a legitimate bank offering what is not an extraordinary rate of return for a bond. The money goes into the account, you never get your bond because it was a fake. So we need lots of different strategies for all of these things.
Sometimes people ask me what’s the difference between a cyber attack and a scam. I describe it like this: a cyber attack is when somebody breaks into your house and steals your stuff without you knowing or without your permission. But a scam or a fraud is when you open the front door and you let them in. And you need a different strategy to address the events where you’re effectively opening the front door.
And that’s why cutting off the pathways to your house is critical. That’s what we’re doing with the telecommunications codes and the social media – cutting off the approach to your bank accounts and slowing those transactions down is so critical. But also informing consumers like Carol and Catryna and myself will be doing today to give consumers information about things to spot, how to know when something is probably a scam.
Just one example – here’s a bit of a preview for the people who are about to join us – if you’re getting an email from somebody who’s proposing to be your bank or a government agency and there’s a typo in it – guess what? – it’s a scam. Because an email from a bank or a government agency has literally gone through dozens and dozens and dozens of hands before they’ve pressed send. So, if there’s a typo in it, it’s probably a scam or it’s not a bank you want to be investing in in the first place. Thanks so much.
JOURNALIST:
Stephen, can I just get one – you seem to know about the online access centres initiative. Do you think that’s a worthy program, and do you think it ought to be better funded?
JONES:
The community information – the CITs – community information and technology centres – were focused on regional Australia. They funded buildings, not people.
JOURNALIST:
Yeah.
JONES:
So those buildings are for the most part still there. Not a bad initiative, but they were pre‑FaceTime, Zoom, all of these other ways, other effective ways, to distribute information and advice. They have a part to play. They definitely have a part to play. But we want to be able to reach into every loungeroom, every boardroom and every lunchroom around the country and deliver our information. So, there’s no one avenue. These guys that we’re fighting against are smart. They’re more likely to have a psychology degree than a prison record. So, we’ve got to be smart in our approach of taking them on. Thanks so much.
JOURNALIST:
Thank you.