Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government helping protect Australians from scammers after a decade of inaction?

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

I thank the member for Holt for her question and congratulate her on her election to this parliament. From Columbo in Sri Lanka to the federal parliament, hers is a magnificent migrant story adding to the lustre of this parliament.

Today I had the great honour of announcing the establishment of a national anti-scam centre, fulfilling an election commitment. It will monitor and respond, in real time, the pandemic of scams that is going up and up and up. We will have new codes of practice and we will bring together the capacity and the expertise across the Commonwealth, state and territory governments, regulators, but, importantly, telecommunications companies, banks and the finance sector—bringing together the expertise to ensure that we can track scams down and protect consumers. Our objective is to ensure that, for scammers, Australia is the destination of last resort.

Scams have gone through the roof. We learnt today, from the ACCC, $2 billion have been lost to scammers over the last 12 months, $4 billion projected over this year. The Minister for Home Affairs advises us that every seven minutes there is an attempted data breach in this country: average cost to business and households, $40,000. It is easy to dismiss this as something which is just praying upon the helpless and the gullible. Yes, we have a lot of work to do to protect people who have disadvantage and who are vulnerable to scams, but it is not just them. From the highest offices in the country to the farmers in the regions, all have fallen victim to scams—crypto scams, romance scams, investment scams, invoice interception scams.

This is a legacy that we have inherited. The member for Deakin, who's had a fair bit to say throughout question time, has just gone quiet. There's a very good reason that he's just gone quiet. This issue is beyond politics but it's not beyond incompetence and it's not beyond indifference, because on his watch it doubled and then it doubled again. The member for Deakin had more people working on branch stacking in his office than the ACCC had working on this project. This is his legacy! No wonder he is so—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Assistant Treasurer will resume his seat. The House will come to order. I know where the manager is going and I give him the call.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This breaches a whole series of standing orders—reflection on members, offensive words. He ought to be very firmly told that this must not happen again.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I uphold the point of order and ask the minister to withdraw the point he made about the member for Deakin—to assist the House.

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

Withdrawn. But this is a legacy of negligence, and it is on their heads, and Australian businesses and households are paying for it. (Time expired)