11/09/2024 

Ms PAYNE (Canberra) (15:49): I rise to speak on this really important matter of public importance brought by the member for Warringah. It's something that is pressing for all Australians, and I'm proud of the action that our government, led by Assistant Treasurer, have taken to address scams and to stop this very destructive trend in our society. I was recently proud to host an antiscams forum with the Assistant Treasurer here in my electorate of Canberra. It was good to hear him talk about all the scam forums he's held all around the country. I do believe he said mine was the biggest-it doesn't really matter, but over 300 people attended this forum, which shows the level of concern in the community about scams. We've all got them; we've all had the text messages, the calls and the emails. It was a great opportunity to have the minister come and speak with my community about the prevalence of scams, give them advice around how they can protect themselves and tell them about what the government is doing to ensure that fewer Australians are being impacted by scams every day.

The work this government has done to date has been transformative in this issue. In 2022 scammers stole 2.7 billion. Obviously, this number is still far too high, and there is more work to be done, but this trend is going in the right direction. Last year the government established the National Anti-Scam Centre to provide cross-sector engagement. The centre brings together industry participants from finance, telecommunications and digital platforms, and these participants are working together with government to expand policies and initiatives which drive down scam activity. Since coming to office the government has invested over 1.6 million and the other lost over 5 million. I believe that they deserve more from their bank, and I raised this and am pleased to say that Westpac have offered to contact both of those constituents individually.

There is more we can do in this space. While the banks have a really important role to play, as the Assistant Treasurer has said, social media platforms also have a really important responsibility in this. The fact that they can take advertising money from scammers who are taking advantage of Australians is not the banks' fault. That is a responsibility that those social media platforms should take seriously. They really should take their role in these terrible crimes seriously and address that.