STEPHEN JONES:
Setting up a National Anti‑Scam Centre will become, if you like, an intelligence centre for the fighting of scams, bringing together all the reports and reporting and sharing information. Critically sharing information against – to those bodies which can do something with it and act quickly.
So, for example, if we get reports of a scam that's out in the field targeting, I don't know, small businesses and using certain sorts of vectors to target those small businesses, we want to be able to notify banks, we want to be able to notify small business organisations and we want to be able to notify law enforcement as quickly as possible to shut down access to money or to shut down access to vulnerable communities.
So that's one example about how the National Anti‑Scam Centre will work. A couple of other important things; education, consumer education.
We're also going to set up fusion cells which are like a hit squad where we're going after certain types of scams and taking the fight up to the scammers to ensure that they don't get an even break. They don't get an easy line into consumers or to small businesses. We're going in there. We'll be doing disruption activity to ensure their job of stealing money from Australians is going to be harder and harder and harder.
MADELEINE MORRIS:
How much do the banks need to be doing here, Stephen Jones? Because just looking at an ASIC report recently into scams found the bank customers overwhelmingly bear the losses. They account for 96 per cent of total scam losses and banks detect and stopped only 13 per cent of scam payments. That's got to improve, hasn't it?
JONES:
Look, I'd be surprised if it's not 100 per cent of losses bank customers, frankly, because most Australians have their money in a bank, most small businesses have their money in a bank and that's where the scammers are going for.
The scammers are attempting to trick customers to give them access to their money through their bank accounts or to transfer money from their bank account to the scammer's bank account. So frankly I'm surprised it's not 100 per cent.
MORRIS:
So do the banks need to be better at –
JONES:
Yes, banks are critical.
MORRIS:
Yeah.
JONES:
Banks are absolutely critical in this and some work we'll do between now and the end of the year is working on codes of practice so there are clear lines of responsibility between banks and their customers.
But we also need a cooperative approach with banks and I'm confident we're getting it so that we can partner up with them. Because if we're doing these fusion cell activity, if we're doing disruption activity, we need the capacity and the disruption and the intel that banks have to work with law enforcement, to work with the ACCC and others to ensure that we can go after these scammers.
I know they take it seriously because it is a significant hit to their bottom line and it's a significant issue for their customers, so we've just got to lift up our capacity in this area.
MORRIS:
Can I just take you to the Budget? Obviously a big week last week with announcing the Budget. There's a Newspoll out today which found that of the people surveyed only 13 per cent found that the Budget was going to make inflation better. Has your Budget failed to land on what was really a key target here?
JONES:
You know for the last 12 months we've been saying our job is to ensure that we manage the economy through a very difficult set of circumstances, improve skills, improve investment in energy infrastructure, but not make a bad situation worse.
I think the universal response, with the exception of the Opposition of course, has been that this is not an inflationary budget, and that inflation is going to come down over the course of the next 12 months hitting that Reserve Bank target range of 2 to 3 per cent by mid‑ to late next year. So, we've got to balance all of these things together.
We've got to ensure that we're not making inflation worse at the same time as meeting all the other expectations that Australians have of us and rebuilding our skills, rebuilding our energy infrastructure, ensuring we're investing in manufacturing and rebuilding, you know, the Medicare capacity. Absolutely critical things that we couldn't let go for another decade. Getting all that balance right. I think we've struck the right balance in all of those areas.
MORRIS:
Are you a bit disappointed though in those polls? I mean it says 33 per cent say it was totally good, 28 per cent say it was totally bad. So they're almost on par there. Not exactly a warm reception for this budget.
JONES:
You know, of course, everybody wants our economic policy to win a popularity contest. Of course, everybody wants that. But the most important test is whether it is an economically responsible Budget, and it is an economically responsible Budget because we are bringing the budget into surplus for the first time in 15 years. We're bringing down debt which will free up about $80 billion in interest repayments over the median term. That's more than we spend on defence annually by the way.
You know, some of these tough decisions that we've got to take have not always been popular but they are in the national interest and they are getting our finances back into a sustainable position, something our predecessors talked about but never did, and ensuring that we are bringing down our debt, paying less on interest but also as much as it's a Budget with a hard head, it's also a Budget with a big heart. And dealing with those issues around single parent payments and Medicare and pharmaceuticals and all of these issue, I think we've got the balance right in all of those areas. And I think the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
MORRIS:
Can I just ask one final question on another of our top stories before I let you go, Stephen Jones, and that's in those shocking displays of Nazism that we saw on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Saturday.
There's a Senate inquiry looking to ban Nazi symbols across the country. Victoria is now moving to ban the Nazi salute in addition to the swastika. Calls for that to be made national. Do you think that that's a good idea, to ban the Nazi salute nationally?
JONES:
Oh, look, what's going on here is un‑Australian. I think most Australians are appalled by these nut cases out there trying to drag this offensive ideology into our culture. It is un‑Australian, and it won't work.
I'll take best advice from, whether it's law enforcement or the other social experts in this area about whether the ban is the best means of addressing this sort of thing. But I think overwhelmingly the most successful response is the overwhelming majority of Australians turning to these people and saying, "Not in our name, not in our country. Your behaviour, your attitudes, your views are not welcome here".
MORRIS:
Okay. Stephen Jones, thanks very much for joining us this morning.
JONES:
Thanks so much.