STEPHEN JONES:
The Albanese government was elected on a commitment to do more to protect Australians from the scourge of scams. When we came into government scam losses were running at $3 billion a year and they were doubling every year. This was occurring because the former government didn’t treat the issues seriously. Immediately upon coming into government we changed that approach. We set up a National Anti‑Scam Centre, we’ve given the telcos new obligations to block SMS calls – SMSs and phone calls from malicious numbers and criminals trying to steal money and information from Australians, and we empowered the Australian Securities and Investment Commission; we gave them more resources to pull down fake investment websites. All of that approach has worked, and for the first time in over a decade, scam losses didn’t double, they actually decreased. But at $2.75 billion, that’s still far too much money and far too much damage. Every one of those dollars has got a tragic story behind it, about a person whose finances have been smashed, all the emotional and mental health anguish that goes with that as well.
So today I’m delighted to be announcing the next phase in the government’s war on scams – tough new laws which will put obligations on banks, on telecommunications companies, on social media platforms to do more. New obligations on all of them to ensure that they’re preventing, disrupting, reporting and taking the fight up to scammers, new obligations in the Australian competition and consumer law which will ensure they are doing more to keep their customers safe, and a breach of these obligations can lead to serious fines and penalties of up to $50 million.
Now in this framework we’ll have specific obligations above the general principles which apply to all of the designated businesses. Those obligations will be set out in statutory, mandatory codes of practice which have bespoke arrangements which apply to banks, to telecommunications companies, social media platforms. Examples of some of those obligations: banks will have to ensure that they are confirming the identity of a payee when a transfer is being made in one of their online applications. Telecommunications companies; stronger obligations to do more to block the scam messages and the scam phone calls. Social media platforms have got a big role to play here as well. You know, over half the scams are now starting to flow and being published on social media platforms. Australians losing billions of dollars because social media platforms aren’t doing enough to keep their networks safe.
So there will be new obligations on social media platforms in the codes of practice to ensure that they’re confirming the identity of the people who are advertising on those platforms to ensure that the criminals don’t have an easy means of publishing their fake investment materials which are robbing Australians of billions of dollars, and overlaying all of this will be new avenues for Australians to seek compensation and redress through new dispute resolution procedures. Businesses will be required to have internal processes so that Australians can go to those businesses and say, ‘This has happened, and I want you to stop it, and I want you to fix it’. And if that fails through the internal process there will be statutory external dispute resolution process and tribunal for Australians to go to and seek redress for losses that they’ve had because a business has failed to do the right thing.
All of this is about ensuring that Australia becomes the hardest place in the world for these criminals to do their business, and when we land this, we’ll ensure that Australia is leading the world in the fight against scams. There’s tough new obligations that will be out for consultation over the next 3 weeks, and we want to get it back into Parliament and through Parliament to ensure, as I said, Australia is the hardest place in the world for these scammers to do their business.
Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST:
Minister, if you leave your door unlocked and you get robbed, your insurance company won’t pay you out. Is there any level of personal responsibility taken here? Should Australians have some responsibility to spot a scam and not fall for it in the first place, rather than the onus being placed on companies?
JONES:
Absolutely everybody has an obligation to ensure that they’re doing something to protect themselves, so there’s lots of things that Australians can do to ensure that they’re doing their bit to keep themselves safe from scams. But increasingly these scammers are becoming more and more sophisticated; the use of AI technology, deep fakes, there won’t be a high‑profile Australian sports person or politician who hasn’t had their image, their identity utilised in a video promoting some fake investment scam, so much more needs to be done across the entire ecosystem. Consumers have an obligation and a responsibility not to act recklessly, but so too do the businesses. I mean I think it’s unconscionable, for example, that a social media platform can take money from an advertiser who is a criminal, who is propagating scams and criminal content on their platform; they’re making money, Australians are losing money. That’s going to stop.
I think it’s also absolutely incumbent upon banks to do much more to lift the safety of their networks. You know, banks have profited from the fact that they’ve moved more and more stuff online, they’ve profited from the fact that money can move at an increasingly quicker rate than it was able to do 10 years ago. We’ve all benefitted from the fact that we can move money around a lot quicker, but there are enormous risks; you can lose money a lot quicker through new online and Internet‑enabled bank transfers as well. We want the benefits, but we’ve got to protect against the risks. So everybody has an obligation. These new laws get the balance right. Strong new obligations on banks, telecommunications companies, social media platforms, because they’re the key pillars in the ecosystem in which scams operate, and when we lock that down, we’ll move to other parts of the economy as well; superannuation, cryptocurrency, these are obvious areas where we need to have a strong uplift in the protection of Australians.
JOURNALIST:
We hear a lot about people losing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. How long might those people have to wait before sort of the bureaucratic process works out and they actually see compensation where they’ve lost money and it’s not their fault?
JONES:
The whole thrust of these laws is preventing the losses before they occur; that’s got to be our number one priority: prevention. It’s prevention, detection, disruption, reporting, sharing of information. A scammer who’s attacked one bank is probably going to be going after customers in another bank, a scammer using one social media platform is probably trying to use another social media platform as well. So, ensuring that we are sharing information across the ecosystem will be a key part of this, prevention being the first line of defence, but absolutely, compensation, fines and penalties.
The ACCC will have extensive new powers under these new laws as the system‑wide regulator to ensure they’re keeping the system safe and going after businesses who do the wrong thing. But the idea of having a tribunal and an external dispute resolution process is all about ensuring that consumers have an easy of access tribunal to enable them to seek compensation when something has gone wrong.
And I’ve got to say I’m really delighted that I’m joined by Alicia Payne and Louise Miller‑Frost, 2 fantastic local MPs. I’ve done community forums in both of their electorates, and at both of those forums hundreds of people attended, and at each and every one of them I heard stories of people who’d lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when I heard those stories I thought, if the measures that were included in the legislation that I’m releasing today were in place, that money would not have been lost, those losses would have been prevented. That’s why we need a significant uplift in our protections. The old approach where somebody, where the previous government said, ‘If you lose money to scams, you’re a mug, it’s your fault’, has to stop. Yes, there has to be individual responsibility, but there has to be corporate responsibility as well.
JOURNALIST:
You mentioned you want these laws to be world‑leading. Advocates have looked to the UK, I think, for a lot of ideas, and there was a suggestion there that in some circumstances a bank will pay compensation to a person when they lose money, and then the bank will go and take the fight to whoever else they need to take the fight to be compensated there, to ensure that a person isn’t left out of pocket in that interim period. Did you find any merit in that idea?
JONES:
I had a look at that, but it’s not actually operating in the UK yet, and it’s not set to come into force until October. I do note that in the last fortnight they’ve walked back, significantly walked back the compensation that’s available, I think they’ve cut it by about 75 per cent under that scheme, and to make it work, they’re actually going to have to do the sorts of things that we’re going to be putting in place through our law. Absolutely there will be compensation in place, absolutely there will be compensation available, but we’ve got to set the standard and the obligation so that we prevent the losses occurring in the first place through prevention, detection, disruption, responding and sharing information across the ecosystem of essential elements that are going to have to be put in place to stop the losses occurring, and if all of that happens we think we can have a significant reduction in the losses. And frankly, I think the rest of the world will be looking to Australia, at our model, when we land this and we put it in place, it will make Australia the hardest place in the world for these criminals to do their business.
JOURNALIST:
Are you expecting a fight with the social media giants and what did you make of Elon Musk tweeting overnight that Australia’s misinformation laws are fascism?
JONES:
This is about sovereignty. This is about the role of a government – Australian Government, any other government – to make laws to keep Australians safe, safe from malicious content, scammers publishing their damaging material online to steal billions of dollars from Australians, keep Australians safe from child pornography, keep Australians safe from being exposed to the livestreaming of murder scenes. Nobody can defend this stuff in the name of free speech. You know, in Australia if you’re a broadcaster or a publisher, you can’t stream or publish any of that stuff. No, there’s no broadcaster or publisher in the country who would say, ‘It is my right in the name of free speech to publish scam advertising, child pornography, livestreaming of a murder scene,’ and say, ‘It’s my right to do that in the name of free speech’. There’s always been limitations on free speech in this country, whether it’s defamation laws, whether it’s the prevention of using false and misleading information in business practices. There’s always been a limitation on free speech, and it is simply untenable to say that those laws apply everywhere except on the Internet.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask a question on the phone.
JONES:
Yep.
JOURNALIST:
Hi. It’s Lucy Gray from Channel 10. Just a few questions. Firstly, when does the consultation end and will you seek to introduce the legislation this term?
JONES:
Three‑week consultation period. We’ve already done extensive consultation with all the stakeholders on this, but the details are out, releasing today, 3‑week consultation period. I want to get this into Parliament this year, because we can’t wait to have Australians protected from the losses of scams.
JOURNALIST:
And what would an entity have to do to meet the threshold of a $50 million fine?
JONES:
Well, these fines have already been in existence in the Australian competition and consumer law. It will be up to courts to determine that. But the most egregious offences and the most negligent actions by a bank, a telco, a social media platform will absolutely lead to the hardest fines.
JOURNALIST:
And often scammers create fake websites pretending to be financial companies, so people unknowingly give them their money, and in that case both the victim and the company that’s being impersonated lose. How does this legislation prevent that from happening?
JONES:
We’ve already got the corporate regulator, ASIC, out there pulling down thousands and thousands of fake websites, they’ve been doing that for the last 9 months, they’ve pulled down close to 6,000 fake investment websites. It is a game of Whack‑A‑Mole, I acknowledge that, but as we’re funding ASIC to do that work, it strikes us that it’s a bit weird and a bit wrong that social media platforms are taking money for posting those ads while Australians are paying money to have the corporate regulator pull them down. So that’s going to change under these laws. They’re going to have an obligation to verify the identity of their advertisers, to not post these criminal contents online, and if they do, there will be fines and penalties that is available, and if they’re not responding immediately to pull this content down, then they can expect a very swift and strong response from the regulator.
JOURNALIST:
And on the EDR, if an entity doesn’t sign up, will they be booted from operating in Australia?
JONES:
No. There’s no choice. If you’re operating a business in Australia, whether you’re a bank, a telecommunications company or a social media platform, you’ll have to participate in the dispute resolution process, which has a tribunal at the end of it making enforceable binding decisions. Can I just say, these are obligations that platforms have signed up to in other countries, so I’m not going to have a bar of any platform saying they can’t do it here in Australia.
JOURNALIST:
And sorry, I couldn’t quite hear the answer to the question before about Elon Musk’s tweet saying, accusing Australia of being fascist. What do you make of that?
JONES:
Oh, this is crackpot stuff. This is about sovereignty. The Australian Government, like every other democratic country in the world, asserts its rights to make laws to keep Australians safe. This is not about free speech. How can anyone in the name of free speech defend criminals publishing misleading content online which is leading Australians to lose billions of dollars? How can anybody in the name of free speech defend criminals posting child pornography online? How can anyone in the name of free speech defend having deep fakes posted online? How can anybody in the name of free speech defend the livestreaming of a murder scene? This ain’t free speech, that’s crackpot stuff. The Australian Government is determined to assert its sovereignty and ensure that we’re keeping Australians safe. Thanks very much.
JOURNALIST:
That’s all from me. Thank you.