TOM CONNELL:
Scams are increasingly costing everyday Australians the tune of at least $3 billion a year, many go unreported for various reasons. The government is pledging to try to protect consumers. Will it do so?
Joining me now, the Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones. Thank you for your time. The key question for consumers is when someone gets scammed, who pays currently, legally, they end up with the bill. Is that going to change under what you're going to propose?
STEPHEN JONES:
We've rolled out the first phase of our strategy, Tom, and too early to be popping the champagne corks, but I can tell you what, the numbers are starting to trend down. We were losing $3 billion a year when we came into government. We put the first phase of our policy into place, and those numbers are starting to come down. That's good news. I hope to have the full year numbers in place very, very soon, and hopefully, that trend continues. The next phase of our plan is about putting in place tough new obligations on banks, on telecommunications companies, and social media platforms. To your point, who pays when something goes wrong? We want to ensure that all of those key players within the scam ecosystem are doing everything within their power and everything that the new laws will say they have to do to protect customers from scammers. And if they don't do something that they're supposed to be doing, then obligations and fines will follow.
CONNELL:
So just on that, though, those obligations, I understand, you say if they haven't obeyed what they should – they get fined. Will there also be compensation to the consumer in that situation?
JONES:
Yes, yes, yes, if they haven't done what they're supposed to be doing. If we've set an obligation and they have not met that obligation, then there'll be fines applicable. And if the failure in that obligation also means that a consumer has lost money, then there'll be compensation payable in those instances. Our objective here, by the way, Tom, is not to have banks or social media companies or telecommunications companies paying out millions of dollars in compensation. Our objective is to ensure that consumers aren't losing those millions of dollars in the first place. Early signs of what we are doing is working, but we've got a long way to go.
CONNELL:
Yeah, well, yeah. Prevention versus cure. Everyone would hope to just not get harassed that it's happening. I think most people have either will probably been within a click or two of doing this. Even pretty savvy people, when you say the companies and so on, will be liable, how will that actually be sort of overseen? So a bank might say, no, it's not our fault or a social media company might say, it's not our fault. Who rules that? Will there have to be sort of a sort of government agency that decides in each given case who's liable?
JONES:
Well, let's just work through some of the details that we are planning to put in our codes of practice. Take a social media platform, for example. If they're taking advertising revenue, for, which is advertising illegal content, is advertising fake investment sites, is advertising fake marketplaces, advertising fake goods and services, and they haven't taken that down and they haven't taken steps to take that down, then consequences will follow. Consequences will follow from that, particularly if consumers are losing money. If it's a bank that hasn't put in place the steps to protect their money, then same things will follow. And if it's a combination of those two, then we'll have processes in place to ensure that liability can be appropriately portioned between the bodies responsible.
CONNELL:
The number of times I've seen Kochie pop up on Facebook and it's not him flogging it, but apparently, he's found a secret stash of crypto and it pops up day after day and you think, how can Facebook not stamp that ad? Is that a clear example of – should have taken down the ad.
JONES:
That's a clear example.
CONNELL:
From the consumer.
JONES:
Yeah, I've seen examples of myself with a very poor American accent flogging investment products. I've seen examples of the Prime Minister doing the same thing, Kochie, other prominent Australians doing the same thing. They're clearly fakes. We want a proactive obligation on social media platforms to go after these criminals who are doing it.
CONNELL:
Stephen Jones, thank you.