LISA MILLAR:
Let’s take you to Canberra now, where Federal Parliament is sitting again this week with talks continuing on the government’s IR bill, and there are plenty of other issues swirling around as well. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones joins me now from Canberra. Good morning to you, Minister, thanks for coming on the show.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good to be with you, good to be with you.
MILLAR:
I wanted to kick off, though, with something you were keen to talk about this morning, and this is Australians and scams. And the figures that are being put around are pretty mind‑blowing - $4 billion in a year. That’s what businesses and Australians are losing.
JONES:
Yeah, two billion last year, heading to four billion this year. And what we know is it’s probably just the tip of the iceberg, because less than 13 per cent of actual scams get reported for lots of reasons, not the least of which is people are understandably embarrassed or distressed and don’t want people to know that they’ve fallen victim to one of these economic crimes.
MILLAR:
Yeah, but doubling it – that’s incredible. What’s going wrong there? What’s happening? Are they getting smarter? We’re not taking as many steps to stop ourselves being scammed?
JONES:
Look, a couple of things. This is actually big business for international crime gangs. They see Australia as a relatively wealthy nation. Everyone’s got a mobile phone and an internet connection and, of course, they’re the vectors for this scam active. And a lot more Australians have gone online through the pandemic and stayed online. And we want them to be conducting their, you know, business online, and the efficiencies of that are well known. But we’ve got to ensure that it’s done safely. So this is National Scams Awareness Week and we’re taking this opportunity to raise awareness but also to talk about our whole‑of‑government approach, because clearly what we’re doing at the moment, what all governments and businesses are doing at the moment, isn’t working and a major step up is going to be needed if we’re going to take on this horrific crime. Households are doing it tough. The last thing they need to be is losing their, you know, household savings, their livelihoods through these criminal gangs who are preying on ordinary Australians and businesses.
MILLAR:
Yeah, I’ve really noticed a step up as well in the amount of online scams on social media – people purporting to be others and flogging material and, you know, I get people contacting me saying, “Is this you”, and it’s clearly not. What can we do about that?
JONES:
Yeah, we want to put in place new laws which require a lot more to be done by social media platforms. Social media platforms are advertising these illegal criminal activities seemingly without consequence. So we want more to be done, imposing obligations on social media platforms to take down these promotions of scam activities. And if they don’t, tough new penalties imposed upon them. We need to be working with the banks and financial institutions and the telecommunications companies as well because a lot of this is coming in by text message and SMS – and emails as well. Which is why the limbs to our new approach, a new anti‑scam centre which is going to be dealing with this stuff in real time to ensure that once we see a scam in motion we’re knocking it on the head as soon as possible, letting consumers know, letting banks know, requiring social media platforms to act as well. Really moving on this stuff quickly. New fines and penalties imposed for when that doesn’t occur. But we also need a job of work on the rectification as well. A lot of attention after the Optus and Medibank data breaches. Big chance that people have had their identities stolen and compromised. We want to make it easier for consumers and businesses to rectify their IDs, get a new driver’s licence, get new IDs and have that stuff sorted out quickly as well. But you can see from all of the things that I'm talking about together with our changes to the privacy law that a whole‑of‑government approach is needed and one that works with industry and business because we’ve all got a stake in getting this right.
MILLAR:
Yeah, speaking of business, could I turn to the IR laws, because they are firing up to reject a whole lot that's in this bill. The National Farms Federation joining that campaign as well today. You’ve made some concession. Is the government going to have to make more to get this bill across the line?
JONES:
Look, can I say about this, the people who are making the most noise are probably the least affected by these proposed changes. This is about low‑paid Australians. It’s about aged care workers, it’s about child care workers, it’s about people working in the care economy. And they haven’t had a pay rise – in fact, their pays have gone backwards over the last decade. We want to change that, and we don’t make any – like, we got elected on a platform of doing something about this to get pay moving again. And, frankly, I’m surprised at some of the voices that have been out there saying this is going to be, you know, the end of the world. It won’t. It’s a more efficient, effective way to get paid moving for low‑paid Australians. And I’ve got to ask – who could be against that?
MILLAR:
Well, you need the Greens and at least one crossbench senator, David Pocock, is saying he thinks it’s still being rushed, he wants to see it possibly split in two. What are the chances this December deadline that the government has set is going to slip by you?
JONES:
Yeah, look, there’ll be a respectful conversation or series of conversations with the crossbenchers. My experience is when you put a good case and we work through it logically and rationally and deal with their objections to things we’ll come to a settlement on that. And I think we’ll do that with the IR laws. You know, I’ve got a good relationship – and I know Tony does – with most of the crossbenchers, and I’m sure – sorry, Tony Burke does. So I’m sure we’ll come to a landing here. But let’s not lose sight of what it is we’re trying to do – and that is to improve the lot of some of Australia’s lowest paid workers who, by the way, they’re dealing with cost of living pressures as well. We can do this in a way that is no threat to business. In fact, it will have a more sensible, rational, effective bargaining approach for businesses large and small.
MILLAR:
All right. Stephen Jones, Assistant Treasurer, thanks for joining us this morning.
JONES:
Great to be with you.