Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday the minister responsible for consumer affairs, the Assistant Treasurer, stood in this place and apologised for the abusive text that he sent about his colleague the Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and the Digital Economy. It's good that the minister apologised for one abusive text, but he should also be apologising for the millions of texts that Australian consumers are receiving every day, as well as the phone calls and emails—the scams—that they are receiving on his watch and that the government are doing absolutely nothing about. On the government's watch, Australia has shot to No. 5 as the fifth-most-scammed country in the world. They are doing nothing about it.

The atrocious thing about all of this is that none of it was necessary. Twelve months ago, a bipartisan committee recommended to the government the actions that needed to be taken and warned them what would happen if they didn't take these actions. Their inaction is costing Australians $33 billion a year. That is right—$33 billion a year. The Prime Minister is uninterested. The minister responsible is uninterested. In Scams Awareness Week he didn't even issue a tweet on it. The Prime Minister says he wants to get the government out of people's lives; he should get scammers off their phones.