Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was a little girl, I used to be incredibly excited to get my pocket money—like many other children across the breadth of this nation. For me, that was $5, and I would pop it into a little pouch. My grade 1 teacher would hold out a sack and we'd put it inside, and when it would come back, the money would be gone but I'd have a purple stamp. That purple stamp meant that those $5 were now in my bank account. That was how I was taught to save. That was how I was taught to make sure that my money was in a place that I knew was safe. That was how I was taught to protect myself when it came to money and finances. I had that confidence that my money was safe.

The world has changed. It's different now, and the way that we deal with money is different too. Long gone are those days of piggy banks and cash deposits being the only way that young people invest their money. Today's young Australians aren't just saving pocket money; they are navigating NFTs, bitcoin and digital wallets. They're doing exactly what we tell young Australians to do. We tell them to adapt, we tell them to innovate, we tell them to try to get ahead, but they're exposed to a market without proper protections in that new landscape. What happens when digital currency platforms collapse overnight? Not to the executives, not just to the investors—what happens to the university student who put their part-time wages into what they thought was going to be a legitimate investment? Importantly, what happens to the small-business owner trying to keep up with how their customers want to pay? If these digital platforms fail, it's not the big corporations who hurt the most—it's our small businesses and the everyday Australians who are just trying to get ahead.

The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 is about closing that gap. It's about ensuring that, as our financial system evolves and changes, the safeguards that protect hardworking people evolve with it too.

I have the great privilege of living in the very best part of Australia, on Brisbane's south side in the seat of Moreton. My office there is in a suburb called Sunnybank. If I took a rock and threw it as far as I possibly could and then drew a circle from that rock's placement around the office, it would encompass scores and scores of businesses—everything from services businesses to hospitality to retail to manufacturing. These businesses are important to the economy. In many ways for my local community these are lifeblood to the economy, and they employ people who live locally. We need to make sure that they too are protected when it comes to digital assets.

The Albanese Labor government is updating Australia's financial laws to match the pace of technological change and international standards. Digital assets have moved from the margins into everyday finance and commerce. Australians use them. Businesses build with them. And the underlying technology, like blockchain, opens real opportunities to transform how our financial systems work. We're talking about faster payments, more efficient settlements and new ways for businesses to raise capital and for consumers to transact. This is the future of finance, and Australians deserve to participate in that future with confidence. We want to be at the forefront of technology. We want to be at the forefront of productivity. We want to be at the forefront of service delivery, and we want to be at the forefront of innovation.

But, when the rulebook is unclear, consumers face risks that we as a country simply cannot accept. We've already seen what happens when there aren't sufficient protections. Tens of thousands of Australians were affected by the collapse of FTX. Families across this country put their trust in a platform that collapsed overnight before their eyes. Billions were lost globally. Consumer trust was shattered, and innovation was undermined. When exchanges like FTX crumble, we see the cost of platform failure in real terms to real people, to real life savings, to real families and to real Australians. The caretaker described it as 'real, old-fashioned embezzlement'. But, if it uses new tech, we must make sure that people still have protection, because the people who hurt the most every day are Australians who trusted the system. It's students, young workers, families and small-business owners trying to stay competitive.

This bill amends the Corporations Act 2001 and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 to recognise two new financial products: digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. These amendments integrate these platforms into our existing, trusted framework rather than creating a parallel system, extending the protections Australians already rely on. It's about making sure that the tech you use isn't an out, isn't an excuse and isn't a reason for accountability and regulation to not keep you safe. This is not regulation for regulation's sake. We're building smarter safeguards on top of financial laws. Australians already know how this works. We're not starting from scratch; we're building on what already works, applying the same principles that have kept Australians safe over many years in the financial system—for decades. And we're giving businesses the certainty that they need to invest and innovate in Australia, knowing the rules are clear and globally aligned.

That's what we want. We want small businesses to innovate. We want them to be more productive so that they can drive the economy. We want them to be successful so that they can employ more Australians, who can have a decent job and decent pay. And the principle is simple: if you hold assets for clients, you meet the same standards. It doesn't matter if those assets are in dollars or digital. The risks of digital assets are ones we have heard before—fraud, mismanagement and cyberattacks. These are the same risks we already regulate in banks and in finance, and this bill simply enshrines clearer rules, fair standards and proper oversight.

We know how to regulate financial risk because we've been doing it for a really long time. The key risks of digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms are ones that we already regulate in traditional finance: credit risk, liquidity risk, counterparty risk, operational risk, fraud and cyber risks. What changes is the technology. What doesn't change, what should never change and what will never change under this government is our responsibility to protect Australians. Operators of these platforms will be required to meet new minimum standards for how client assets are held and how transactions are processed as well as to comply with disclosure obligations designed specifically for digital asset businesses. And that means clear rules on custody. Your assets must be held securely and separately from the platform's own assets. It also means clear rules on reconciliation. Platforms must know, at all times, exactly what they're holding and when they're holding it. It also means clear rules on disclosure. Consumers deserve to know the risks before they invest. Australians deserve to know the risks before they invest.

By extending Australia's financial services laws to better cover digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms, we're giving consumers and industry the certainty that the same consumer protections and licensing obligations apply to comparable custodial activities. If you're holding someone's assets, you're subject to the same standards—no excuses, no exceptions, no shortcuts, just accountability. These measures ensure that operators of digital asset businesses are held to those same high standards of fairness, transparency and integrity as other financial service providers are. This government believes that Australians deserve those same protections, whether they're investing in shares, whether they're investing in property or whether they're holding those digital assets, and this bill delivers that.

This bill requires operators to hold an Australian financial services licence, meaning they're obliged to act efficiently, honestly and fairly; handle conflicts of interest properly; and maintain dispute resolution processes. These aren't new concepts. These are the same requirements we place on every financial service provider in this country, because operating in Australia's financial system means a commitment to Australian consumers, a commitment to the values we hold so dear that mean Australians are protected. Beyond that, they'll meet obligations designed specifically for digital assets with baseline standards for custody, segregation, reconciliation and how transactions settle. These requirements acknowledge what makes digital assets different: no central issuer in some cases and peer-to-peer movement in others. The old rulebook doesn't always fit the new technology, but the protections must. That's why this bill is flexible, equipping the minister and ASIC with powers to update requirements as technology shifts, addressing new risks and keeping the framework relevant. This bill is not just about protecting consumers from today's technology, from what is happening right now; it reaches out to make sure that we are safeguarding against technologies that could be abused in the future. It reaches into the future to make sure that the tech of tomorrow doesn't mean Australians will be left stranded.

Technology moves fast—we know that—and regulation needs to keep up. This bill gives us the tools to do that without needing to come back to this parliament every time technology changes. This adaptive approach lets us safeguard consumers without crushing innovation, positioning Australia to set the pace in digital finance, not to chase it. The government backs innovation, but innovation without protection is a recipe for disaster. This bill gets the balance right.

The bill allows an 18-month adjustment window. Businesses already operating responsibly get time to meet those new requirements, and ASIC can grant temporary relief where it's needed. This measured reform builds confidence in our financial system—confidence that Australians deserve—while establishing Australia as a credible centre for digital innovation. ASIC will oversee these platforms under clearer rules, bringing digital platforms under the same trusted oversight Australians already rely on for every other part of our financial system.

This bill aligns us with those global standards set by the Financial Stability Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions, keeping us competitive with jurisdictions like the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Singapore. The government proposes to provide a clear regulatory framework that is fit for purpose and considers these international standards, protecting consumers while supporting that innovation and providing a clear and consistent framework for businesses operating in Australia's growing digital sector. This reform will help attract investment. This reform will help create jobs. This reform will help us grow our digital economy. When businesses know the rules are clear, we know that they invest. When consumers know they're protected, we know that they participate. This bill creates the preconditions for both of those things, ensuring Australians can participate safely in the digital asset sector knowing the rules are clear and in force.

Australia has long been a global leader in financial services. Our superannuation system, a proud Labor legacy, is internationally respected. Our banks weathered global financial crisis better than most, and our regulatory framework has driven innovation while maintaining stability. I grew up knowing the system had my back. Every dollar I saved was protected. Today's Australians deserve that same certainty, no matter how they choose to save, no matter how they choose to invest their hard earned money. Whether they're putting money in a piggy bank or investing in digital assets, they deserve to know that the system protects them.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course I welcome the pathway to be able to make sure that the financial instruments that Australians use on a day-to-day basis operate with the compliance and framework of law. So in seeking, in the loose terms of the spirit of this law, to support it, I welcome the fact that the government is finally taking steps to bring about a legal framework to include cryptocurrencies and the sorts of digital assets that we need to be part of not just a modern economy but the global economy. It has taken the government an incredibly long period of time to get here, and I know their agenda has been incredibly detailed and complicated in so many different areas, of which not a single one I can name. But that's probably a reflection of the busy work and fights that go on between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

We nonetheless welcome the pathway that they're providing for a framework for cryptocurrencies. Fair enough too. When I look at cryptocurrencies—I've always been a bit of a sceptic not from a sense of opposition but from a sense of, 'What's the underlying value?' I'm in the Warren Buffett camp at the end of the day, if it's productive capacity in use. But one thing I have always given credit to cryptocurrencies for is that I think that they're a hedge against inflation and expansive monetary policy from central banks—entities that I am not very trusting of because they have successively and consistently got decisions wrong, which has led to what we now have to acknowledge is the Chalmers rate-rise cycle. We had, of course, one interest rate rise yesterday off the back of shocking inflation data. But we know this is not going to be the end. So long as you have expansive fiscal policy—borrowing from the future for debt spending for today to cover up on the economic mismanagement of this government—Australians will be at risk of higher inflation and higher interest rates.

We're a stand-out, but for all the wrong reasons, on a global scale around interest rates. It's directly connected to decisions by state and federal governments who simply want to cover up for their economic mismanagement by borrowing more money so that they don't have to acknowledge that they're strangling the private sector of the economy.

So the one thing I will say at the moment is that I'm afraid crypto probably is—and this is general advice, not financial advice—good value in hedging against the economic tyranny of the Albanese government, because the Chalmers rate-rise cycle has only just begun and there will be much more of it yet to come. I say that with sadness, because there's nothing Australians can afford less right now, after they've paid their Christmas credit-card-debt bill and are paying for school fees, uniforms and all the other costs that come with the new school year. The worst thing they could have had yesterday was an interest rate rise, and unfortunately, under the Chalmers rate-rise cycle, you should fully accept that that's not going to be the end of the matter.

But that's not what this bill, the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, addresses. What it does do, though, is to give a legal framework, a pathway, for Australians—young, old and everything in between—to invest, as they see fit, complying with law. We welcome that, because there are a lot of issues that a lot of people who invested in crypto earlier, before this legislative framework, had. There were big grey areas around the property rights underlying their investments, the legality of them, the transferability of them and their capacity to seek redress, and there are lots of the more complicated things that flow on, for instance, from capital gains tax.

We, on this side of the chamber, have always understood how important it is to get this framework right. That's why Senator Bragg did an outstanding job leading a parliamentary inquiry to look at how we take the grey into the light. The government has picked up significant parts of Senator Bragg's efforts and passed them off as their own homework. We still, ultimately, welcome the effort—even if there isn't the acknowledgement and we're seeing the government trying to pretend that they have somehow invented this work.

But we can understand why the Labor Party took so long to introduce this legislation, because, at every point, we know, the cartel relationships that operate between the Labor Party, the trade unions and the industry super funds are a giant money-laundering operation, and of course one of the problems with crypto is that it sits outside of the frames of legality. So I imagine that a large part of the reason why it's taken so long is that they've been desperately trying to figure out how they can extract, from crypto, cartel kickbacks to the CFMEU, to go into the slush funds of the Labor Party and the trade union movement and perhaps other funds as well. It continues to be a criminal activity, but, unfortunately, when we know that Australian taxpayers' money has flown into organised crime and bikie gangs, courtesy of state and federal Labor governments, there is a moral evil here that must be expunged. And, until we remove this government, crypto, traditional assets and your tax dollars will not be safe. No Australians' assets will be safe until we remove this government.

We're supportive of the principle of this bill and what it's seeking to achieve. But the government, in their way, can't help but go off and refer things to different agencies like ASIC. As to ASIC and having oversight of ASIC, let's be polite and say that, at times, calamity follows and there's their complete incapacity or unwillingness to regulate certain sections of the market—let alone the absence of the knowledge, capacity or skill.

We have recommended that this bill go off to a committee because we believe that it is deficient, we're not convinced ASIC can do the job that's been charged to them and there's a serious need for further work to be done. But we'll see on that.

There's the spirit of the bill, but the practical application of it is something we're going to have to not just revisit through the committee process but continue to revisit into the future, because the cost of getting this wrong is serious. We know full well that, if we have crypto in a legal framework that encourages investment, it could be part of capital flows that can invest in the future of this country, and we can increase the economic opportunity that every Australian enjoys. The failure is what is happening right now, where people are investing offshore and Australians are disconnected from the opportunities of crypto.

Now, I understand why a lot of Australians are—and only the other day I had a constituent say that they are—moving their capital offshore, because of the approach of this Labor government, and moving it to foreign jurisdictions, in a legal way. And this is now a very common story. We're seeing the same thing in the UK, where Labor governments think they can somehow tax people into prosperity, where they can tax people to the point they'll look for foreign jurisdictions, where they're taxed out of their patriotism. That is exactly what is happening under this government—that we're all becoming poorer as a nation. And, of course, crypto provides a very fast pathway to do that, and that is what we're now staring down—the risk of capital outflows from this country because Labor can't manage the budget.

They're exposing Australians to inflation. That means higher interest rates. That means that, as part of the Chalmers' rate-rise cycle, Australians will get poorer and will be taxed out of their patriotism. This is a time when we need laws that design and protect people's assets and Australians are encouraged to keep their money onshore, investing in the future of this nation—not part of the cartel kickback corruption cycle that has so fanned under this government and state Labor governments and is core to the corrupt system that sits at the heart of the modern Labor Party.

Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tim—I think the honourable member for Goldstein, having come into the same class as me in 2025, showed the experience of having been in a previous class as well.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members will be referred to by their correct titles, which did happen.

Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry—the honourable member for Goldstein. I appreciate that there was a bit of a lesson there. That's what happens when you run out of something to say in a 15-minute speech. I thought, 'Well, this is good; he's clearly run out of things to say, so we're going to get an insight into how you handle a speech when you don't have anything more to say.' But, unfortunately, we went on a bit of a kaleidoscopic journey into the honourable member's mind. Looking at the point in his speech at which I'd refer people to in the future, if they ever wanted to get a bit of an insight into what happens when somebody panics, go to the 10-minute mark and you'll be completely entertained.

I'm not sure there's anything of substance to respond to in his contribution as part of this debate, but I would very much like to support the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. At first glance, it may not stir immediate passion. It is an uncontroversial bill. It enjoys broad support across the parliament, including from the opposition parties—all of them—and other members in the parliament. I think this bill is a reflection of the calm and methodical approach to economic and financial reform that this government undertakes. Just as this government has approached superannuation reform through the changes to the payday super, and just as we're addressing failures like First Guardian and Shield, this bill approaches digital assets with the same careful consideration and pragmatism that shows that this government is about governing responsibly and ensuring that Australians are protected while the Australian financial system can innovate and grow.

The name Sam Bankman-Fried will bring to the minds of tens of thousands of Australians the idea of pain and loss. When the platform FTX collapsed in 2022, many ordinary Australians—not sophisticated investors—lost life savings. In fact, the collapse of a financial product or something financial that someone believed in has a devastating impact on someone's life.

I received a letter from a constituent about the collapse of First Guardian. It illustrates why we need to undertake this sort of essential reform. It will take a bit of time, but I'd appreciate it if the chamber would bear with me. It read: 'I'm writing to you as an ordinary Australian, a low-income earner, a layperson. I'm not writing with fancy words or legal knowledge. That's not who I am. Please don't just read my letter and then move on. Please use your position to speak up for the people who are in these situations through no fault of their own.

Below are two superannuation scenarios I have personally experienced. My son worked for a company for about five years. That company chose not to contribute to his superannuation account. So, when my son resigned and moved on to another position, he realised that his guaranteed superannuation contributions from his employer had not been paid. He then had to put the hard work in to try to recover what is rightfully his for his future. To date, none of those contributions have reached my son's superannuation account.

Scenario 2: my partner and I have lost a portion of our superannuation due to the First Guardian Master Fund collapse. We now have to do the hard work to try and get it back. In 2022 we paid an adviser to look after our superannuation accounts. That appears to have been a very costly exercise—fees, a big mistake and loss. We are the ones now paying for the actions and inactions of others. We have lost years of savings and security, and we continue to lose. We are being punished for trusting the system that's supposed to protect us. We are not wealthy people. We don't pretend to be. We live by our means, and every dollar in our superannuation accounts means a lot to our future. As small as it may seem to others, it is all we have for our future.

I'm tired, angry, frustrated, sad, broken, and genuinely don't understand how these scenarios can take place. I live with ongoing mental health struggles and have done for years. I've had two hospital admissions this year and, yes, our superannuation losses have certainly added to my struggles. My partner worked for Woolworths for 25 years in warehousing, and he has to face every day knowing that a portion of his superannuation is gone. This is also unfair and genuinely cruel. The innocent parties need to be compensated and the governing body needs to go after those responsible to recover what's owed. Instead, it looks like we are heading into the festive season with a big, dark cloud hanging over our heads. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.'

Her words tell us better than anybody else's in this chamber why consumer protection and trust is central to this bill. This is not abstract policy. It affects real people's livelihoods and retirement savings, and it affects confidence in the financial system. Collapses of digital asset platforms such as FTX and of superannuation funds like First Guardian and Shield demonstrate that we are now operating in a new and evolving financial world where technology changes faster than the law. Innovative financial products carry risks that ordinary Australians may not fully understand, and this bill is designed to respond to that reality. It provides the minister with powers to adapt quickly to technological change, ensuring that rules remain fit for purpose.

Reflecting on my own journey in entrepreneurialism gives me some insight into what is happening here. My first business was as a contract musterer. 'Business' is a very fancy way of describing it, because, really, it was a ute and a bike and a couple of dogs and the will to win. But it taught me something essential about entrepreneurialism. I say sometimes that it's about creating something out of nothing. But it's not nothing; it's many things—many disparate things—which are put together so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. It is about as far removed from the financial world as you can get.

It was only later, when I became really interested in small business and entrepreneurialism in sales, that I really started to learn about what the financial system meant. I set up a little business. I never purported to be a genius or an expert, but I wanted to learn how to sell, so I set up a little sales training business, under the maxim that the best way to learn is to teach. We moved to the Gold Coast, and I ended up doorknocking along Scarborough Street and Ferry Road in Southport. I got a real estate agent, a hairdresser, a telemarketer, a second-hand store owner, an aquarium owner and a mechanic, and through that process I learned a great deal about business and entrepreneurialism.

Another client I got was a mortgage broker. That was in about 2005, just a couple of years before the global financial crisis. The financial system had become increasingly complex. Mortgages were sliced and diced and bundled into products that were so opaque, but the ratings agencies deemed them safe. In Australia, we had things like low-doc loans, but they were better described in the United States as NINJA loans—no income, no job or assets. When that system collapsed, it destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, and it brought the world to the edge of financial ruin.

Some historians like to say that capitalism began with tulips—but not literally, of course. The Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s was one of the first times that people bought and sold assets purely for speculative profit. Single bulbs were sometimes traded for more than the price of a house, and, when the market collapsed, fortunes were lost. That lesson is timeless. Markets can be exciting and innovative, but, without clear rules and protections, consumers are exposed to unacceptable risks. This bill ensures that Australians participating in asset markets have safeguards against such catastrophic outcomes.

That experience also provided a lesson about how money works and how the economy functions. Working with a mortgage broker at the time, I got really interested in the financial system and I learned a little bit about how it all works. The most fascinating illustration was the story of goldsmiths and how they would be safe keepers for people's gold. They would take in the gold. They soon worked out that not everybody was coming back to take all of the gold out at the same time, so they could lend that gold out and earn interest on it. By lending that gold out, they were able to provide loans to merchants, farmers and entrepreneurs, and they fuelled trade, business growth and investment, creating more credit, leading to more economic activity, and creating jobs and wealth. Businesses with credit could expand, improve goods, services and infrastructure, and benefit people. But, if too many deposits were demanded at once, the system collapsed—just like the GFC and FTX—and ordinary people got hurt.

So, without clear rules, customer assets can be exposed and customers can be left devastated. This bill addresses that risk, setting clear rules, custodial standards and licensing obligations so that Australians' assets are protected while also allowing innovation to thrive.

Crypto is a bit of a mystery. I am no crypto bro. It is not easily understood by many Australians. Despite its glamour and appeal, I don't believe it is quite as revolutionary as what the goldsmiths were able to create with the beginning of the creation of credit. But it does represent a further evolution of the financial system. It's got the potential to make business cheaper and improve productivity and efficiency by lowering the costs of financial transactions. The benefits are significant. The Tech Council of Australia previously estimated in 2022 that supporting a responsible digital asset sector could add up to $60 billion a year to GDP by 2030. It suggested that digital assets could reduce retail payment costs by up to 80 per cent by 2050 and save consumers around $4 billion annually in transaction fees. So, while this does not rival the original development of credit in its impact, it has got the potential to further enhance the way financial systems operate.

That's why clarity is essential not only for consumers but also for operators. At present, that clarity is lacking. ASIC's taken a number of enforcement actions, but the outcomes of those actions have been varied and, according to legal analysis, they have provided only limited guidance to the industry. The Australian crypto sector has raised concerns that an apparent regulation-by-enforcement approach has not been a fair or efficient way to resolve uncertainty. Fragmented regulation has increased compliance costs, created barriers to market entry and in some cases inhibited investment and innovation, and it also makes it hard to work out what a business has to do, while leaving gaps for ordinary consumers.

This work fits within the government's statement on an innovative Australian digital asset industry. One of the other things raised in that statement is the problems around debanking, which occurs when a bank declines to provide banking services or withdraw those services from existing customers not because of wrongdoing but because of perceived risk. Businesses have accounts closed with little notice, and digital asset businesses are commonly debanked due to regulatory uncertainty.

This digital asset bill addresses all of these risks. It requires digital asset platforms to hold proper licences to segregate customer assets to meet minimum custody standards so that Australians can innovate and invest in crypto without gambling their savings. Digital assets are no longer a fringe curiosity, and so I recommend and support this bill.

Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always a pleasure to follow my colleague and my 2025 classmate, the member for Forde. I rise to speak on the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill, which on face value is presented as a technical amendment but in reality also exposes a serious failure of legislative drafting, regulatory oversight and accountability that's gone unchecked for 14 years. This bill seeks to correct a drafting error, made under a Labor government in 2011, relating to the indexation of ASIC company review fees. The opposition will not oppose the bill in the House; however, we will not give it a free pass either. We will be seeking to refer this bill to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, and we will reserve our final position until that scrutiny has occurred. On behalf of a lot of small businesses that I represent in Monash and have engaged with across the country in different roles prior to coming to this place, I think that is a good thing. The approach here is not obstructionist; it's responsible—because, while drafting errors can occur, the scale, duration and impact of this mistake demand serious examination.

In 2011, Labor introduced indexation for ASIC company review fees. The policy intent was clear. This is where unintended consequences can arise. Fees would rise over time in line with inflation. However, due to a drafting error, only the main annual review fee was properly captured in the legislation. Several other fees were not. These included late annual review fees, 10-year review fees and special-purpose company fees paid by charities, not-for-profits and superannuation trustees. Despite this, ASIC continued to apply indexation across all of these fees for the next 14 years. I'll repeat that: 14 years. There couldn't be a better example of 'set and forget' than what has occurred here. As a result, ASIC collected an estimated $150 to $200 million in fees that were not technically authorised in law. Those fees were paid in good faith by Australian businesses and organisations that had absolutely no reason to believe the charges were unlawful. They paid them in good faith.

This issue was not uncovered by whistleblower. It was not uncovered by a court case. It was not uncovered by a parliamentary review. It was only identified in late 2024 during an internal ASIC legal audit, more than a decade after the regulation first took effect. This is not good enough. That fact alone should have given all of us in this place pause. ASIC fees are not incidental charges. They're not, in effect, a tax on doing business. Every company in Australia must pay them in order to exist in our regulatory system. When those fees are unlawfully charged, that matters. It matters not just legally but morally. This error may well represent the largest retrospective tax validation exercise in Australia's history.

ASIC currently collects around $1.8 billion each year in fees and levies. That's more than a billion dollars from registry fees paid by Australian businesses, many of them small businesses, many of them mum-and-dad operators who work really hard to be able to afford those fees and levies. ASIC is known for its strict enforcement; it issues penalties for late payments, cancels registrations and applies late fees without hesitation. Small businesses know that missing a payment, sometimes as small as a few hundred dollars, has serious consequences. ASIC don't muck around.

I've previously sat as a member of ASIC's small business and industry roundtable. I've raised the plight of small-business people directly with ASIC, with its most senior executive members, and on occasion they've listened. But, on the whole, ASIC are not Robinson Crusoe here. Government bureaucracies are well behind the benchmark of where they should be when it comes to treating small-business people with respect, fairness and understanding. You can uphold the law and act with decency at the same time. When the shoe is on the other foot, there are a number of instances where ASIC is slow out of the gates in seriously considering the complaints of small business, and I'll raise a few examples.

A 2024 parliamentary report by the Senate Economics References Committee suggested that ASIC had often failed to protect small businesses by dismissing reports of corporate misconduct too quickly or by focusing only on minor enforcement measures. Key findings from the report regarding ASIC's failures include the dismissal of misconduct reports, with ASIC having taken no further action on approximately 66 per cent of reports of alleged misconduct received from the public; automated no-action emails, with the report highlighting that most statutory reports submitted by liquidators regarding insolvent companies are met with an automated no-further-action email, sometimes within 40 seconds of a submission; underenforcement and inadequate penalties, with the committee finding that, for matters where ASIC does take action, civil penalties are often at odds with the scale of offending and few criminal sanctions are achieved; the failure to use its full powers, with ASIC accused of not using the full extent of its powers to tackle serious misconduct such as illegal phoenix activity, which, as we all know, heavily impacts small-business owners; and its 'lighter' approach, with the committee noting that the express investigation approach adopted during the pandemic, which prioritised cooperation, resulted in insufficient enforcement.

I've had a little bit to say previously about the officiousness of regulatory bodies recently in their treatment of small businesses, and I'll give one example. Last year I wrote to Treasurer Jim Chalmers on behalf of drought impacted farmers in my electorate of Monash. They had had a very dry winter, which had been preceded by further dry conditions. So financially stretched were a number of these farmers that they were forced to sell off stock early, and, of course, that was going to affect their tax bill at the end of the financial year. I asked the Treasurer, on behalf of those farmers, to request that the ATO show fairness and leniency when those drought impacted farmers put their hand up and say, 'I'm struggling here.' I got a pro forma fact sheet back not addressing the issue, which demonstrated what I think is an enshrined contempt for, and sometimes wilful ignorance of, the plight of everyday regional Australians trying to keep their head above water right now.

It's a good example of how bodies like ASIC and the ATO employ a double standard of expectation on these issues. It's why it is extraordinary that the same regulator that fines a business for missing a $310 payment has been charging unlawful fees for more than a decade. This arose from an honest drafting error, but fairness demands the same legal standards apply to government agencies as those that apply, in my view, to small-business owners. The rule of law cannot operate in only one direction. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 retrospectively validates 14 years of fees that ASIC had no legal authority to charge. In practical terms, it retrospectively legitimises more than $150 million in revenue.

Retrospective legislation is something the Liberal Party would ordinarily oppose. We are intrinsically wary about it as a general legislative principle, particularly where it shields government from legal exposure. Retrospective laws undermine certainty and trust in the system. They change the rules after the fact. Now, there are some special cases in instances of national security where retrospective legislation is required. However, we also recognise the serious budget implications if refund claims were allowed to proceed unchecked. This is a difficult balance that this parliament must now confront, and that is precisely why scrutiny matters.

This bill cannot simply be waved through on the basis that it's just a technical issue. It's not a technical issue. There are some profound principles at play here that demand scrutiny. It's not a minor error, and it's not narrow. It affects millions of entities across the Australian economy. Around 1.56 million currently registered entities have paid the affected fees. Approximately 795,000 deregistered entities were also charged. A further 440,000 active entities have been invoiced but have not yet paid. The sheer scale underscores why this issue cannot be dismissed as a footnote. The Senate committee process must examine how this drafting error went undetected for 14 years. It must examine whether concerns were raised earlier by ASIC or Treasury legal teams, and, if so, why were they not acted upon? It must also consider whether affected businesses should be entitled to refunds, credits or offsets. It must look squarely at which accountability mechanisms failed and how they can be strengthened to ensure this never happens again. Australians expect government to get the basics right.

To understand the real-world impact, it is worth looking at how these fees increased over time. The late annual review fee rose from $70 to $93 for payments 28 days late, and from $292 to $387 for payments more than three months late. The 10-year upfront review fee for small proprietary companies increased from $2,200 to $3,100. Special purpose company fees rose from $43 to $60. These are not abstract numbers for small businesses and for not-for-profits that survive on the smell of an oily rag; these dollars are consequential. They represent hard work, risk, blood, sweat and tears. They represent real costs borne by businesses and organisations who assumed, quite rightly, quite reasonably, that the law was sound.

Regulations made on 11 March 2025 have fixed the problem prospectively. This bill is required to apply that fix retrospectively, back to 1 July 2011. Without it, ASIC could face refund claims worth hundreds of millions of dollars, despite the fact that these fees reflected longstanding policy intent, relied upon by both government and business. But intent is not the law. This issue began under Labor. It remained hidden for 14 years, and it reflects a broader pattern of poor drafting and weak quality control that undermines confidence in our regulatory systems.

The Liberal Party's position is clear. We will not oppose this bill in the House, but we will not support it without proper scrutiny. We will push for a Senate inquiry to examine the full scope of the mistake and ASIC's accountability. This is about fairness, integrity and consistency. It's about doing what is right, because Australians expect and deserve better. If small businesses are expected to comply with every letter of the law—and they are—then government and regulators must be held to the same standard.

My drought-stricken farmers in Monash have not been given fairness, leniency or understanding by the ATO or indeed through my representations to this government. They deserve better. All Australians deserve better.

Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. As our world continues to change, so too do our financial markets, and so does the way people are holding and exchanging value. That's why the Albanese government has introduced this legislation. We are helping to unlock innovation and protect Australian consumers investing in digital assets.

Across the world, digital assets are reshaping finance. Blockchain technology and tokenisation are unlocking new ways to invest and new ways to trade and transfer wealth. Millions of Australians are using or investing in digital assets every year, and this law is about making that as safe and secure as possible while also encouraging innovation.

But what are digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms? They're a bit obscure to many people. So, to start with, let's define what we mean by 'digital asset platforms'. In plain English, these are businesses that let customers interact with things like cryptocurrency—such as bitcoin and stablecoins—tokenised assets, non-fungible tokens and other blockchain-based financial products. These platforms include exchanges, broker services, custody providers, yield or staking platforms, wallet providers and marketplaces.

Tokenisation is the process of representing something valuable as a digital token on a blockchain. A blockchain is a distributed ledger using cryptographics—I know this sounds a bit complicated—to enable digital assets to be created, stored and transferred. The token represents something valuable. It might be real estate, shares in a company or commodities like gold. It could be artwork, carbon credits or invoices. Tokenisation, basically, answers a simple question: what if we could own, trade and transfer real-world value like we transfer digital information?

The phrase 'tokenised custody platforms' refers to a new wave of businesses that go beyond trading. Instead of being a general exchange, they build purpose-specific systems, such as tokenised property investment platforms, tokenised private markets, medical credential tokens, supply chain token platforms, tokenised rewards or creator economies. These platforms are customised to specific industries, but the key point is that they still involve money, they still involve an asset of value, they still involve investment-like behaviour and they still expose consumers to financial risk.

Our government takes Australia's crypto industry very seriously, and we know that blockchain and digital assets present big opportunities for our economy, our financial sector and our businesses. Digital assets are also reshaping global finance, and they include cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and stablecoins, as well as real-world assets like bonds, property and commodities—things I spoke about earlier. They can be represented as digital tokens.

I remember when I first heard the words 'bitcoin' and 'cryptocurrency'. It sounded to me a bit like these were out of TheMatrix movie. And, for quite a while, it was a system that was on the fringe and people didn't know a lot about it. It was more of an alternative payment system, but it has now become a lot more mainstream and is providing an alternative payment system. This is not a distant future. This is happening now. Global institutions are experimenting with tokenised securities, central banks are exploring digital currencies and investors are demanding safe, regulated ways to participate.

These innovations promise faster payments, lower costs and broader access to markets. In fact, new research from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre indicates that Australia could capture as much as $24 billion a year in productivity and cost savings thanks to unlocking digital finance innovation.

But, as with all value creation and transfer, there are risks. These laws are designed to deal with both the opportunity and the risk. They will boost confidence, attract investment and support jobs and wages by providing clear, trusted rules for emerging digital markets, helping to make Australia a global leader in financial technology. They will also help reduce the risks to Australians. Currently, businesses can hold unlimited client digital assets without financial law safeguards. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill introduces clear, enforceable rules for businesses that hold digital assets on behalf of consumers, ensuring that they meet the same standards of transparency, integrity and protection that apply across the financial system.

If we get this right, we can attract investment, we can create jobs, and we can position our financial system as a leader in innovation. But, as I said, with opportunity comes risk. It is currently possible for a business to hold an unlimited value of client digital assets without any financial law safeguards. The collapse of FTX and other failures show what happens when digital asset businesses operate without proper oversight. Billions were misappropriated. Consumers lost a lot of value. Consumers were devastated. Confidence was lost. And we all know that cryptocurrency remains a vector in scams and frauds. Australians have lost millions to schemes that exploit gaps in regulation and consumer knowledge.

These reforms will increase integrity in the digital asset ecosystem. Together with the world-first Scams Prevention Framework and our proposed reforms to Australia's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing regime, this bill will help remove bad actors and restore trust in the digital asset markets. It will make it harder for criminals to operate and easier for consumers to participate safely. By introducing digital assets and tokenised custody platforms into the Corporations Act, it ensures that businesses holding and dealing in client digital assets are subject to the same consumer protections and licensing requirements that apply across the financial system. These include prohibitions on misleading and deceptive conduct, unfair contract terms, design and distribution obligations and supervision and enforcement by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the regulator. Anyone providing services in relation to digital assets or tokenised custody platforms, such as advising on them, dealing in them or arranging for others to deal with them, will be treated as providing a financial service.

Protecting consumers and businesses has to be at the heart of this legislation. This bill does respond to the risks and challenges by reducing loopholes and ensuring comparable activities face comparable obligations, but it's tailored to the digital asset ecosystem. The digital asset and tokenised custody platforms will now need to hold an Australian financial services licence, ensuring that they are subject to the same core obligations as the more traditional players. These include the requirement to act efficiently, honestly and fairly; prohibitions on misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair contract terms; a requirement to give customers clear information about how assets are held and what their rights are; providing information to consumers; maintaining strong governance and risk controls; and providing accessible dispute resolution and compensation if things go wrong. While digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms will be regulated under the existing Australian financial services licence framework, their obligations will be tailored to reflect the unique structure and risk profile of these types of platforms.

Small-scale operators with less than $10 million in transaction value across a rolling 12-month period will be exempt from licensing, as will businesses that deal in or advise on platforms only incidental to their main non-financial activity. Flexible powers are provided to the minister and to the regulator, ASIC, to respond to emerging risks and technologies. The minister may designate certain facilities as financial markets or clearing settlement facilities or exempt them when their treatment would be inappropriate. The minister may also prohibit particular products or activities that represent systemic or consumer risks. ASIC's existing product intervention powers—that is, the powers of the regulator—and the government's existing regulation-making powers will extend to cover these new financial products.

There will be an 18-month transition period, and this will help businesses and the regulator get familiar with navigating the reforms in practice. The bill aims to ensure a smooth pathway to the new regime, including providing temporary relief for businesses trying to do the right thing. Together, these features create a pathway to a clear, consistent and enforceable framework that protects consumers, provides regulatory certainty for industry and maintains flexibility as technology and markets innovate and evolve.

Stakeholders have long called for this bill, engaging in four rounds of public consultation on the policy and legislative approach. These reforms strengthen consumer protections and modernise Australia's regulatory system. They will boost confidence, attract investment and support jobs by providing trusted rules for emerging digital assets. Labor's economic plan is all about modernising Australia's economy to boost wages and growth, to encourage innovation and to increase living standards, and this legislation is an important part of that strategy.

Digital assets are a growing part of our financial system. We cannot ignore that. They offer new ways to trade, invest and build businesses, unlocking capital and strengthening Australia's competitiveness as a financial centre. Australia must keep pace. This bill delivers on the government's commitment to modernise Australia's regulatory framework and prepare it for an ever digitising economy. It ensures digital assets and tokenised custody platforms are subject to the same standards of consumer protection, transparency and integrity that apply across our financial system. This is about foolproofing Australia's regulatory settings.

The bill supports innovation and competition while giving regulators the tools to act swiftly when new risks arise—and, at the current rate of innovation, that is greatly needed. It extends longstanding, well-understood financial services obligations that can be applied across a wide, diverse and rapidly developing industry. It's another step to making Australia's economy more dynamic, more resilient and more productive. It advances our commitment to smarter regulation that gets more investment flowing more efficiently and more effectively across our economy. As a government, we have listened, improving regulatory clarity and ensuring seamless interaction with existing laws. The government is committed to strengthening Australia's position as a global leader in financial innovation—one where technology supports productivity, competition and long-term economic resilience. This bill is good for consumers, it's good for businesses, it's good for the economy and it's good for Australia's reputation as a leader in financial regulation and financial services. I support this bill.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 to regulate digital assets under Australia's financial services laws. Under the current laws, there are major gaps in the regulation of these digital assets. We must ensure strong consumer protections and fair regulations that align with other equivalent financial products. It's incredibly important that ASIC has the power to regulate these platforms and that our laws are tailored to actually apply to these new technologies.

We need to make sure, though, that people are not left vulnerable to scams and exploitation—something that's happening far too often in this space—while also ensuring an innovative and competitive market. We also need to ensure that these new technologies and services don't displace traditional banking services for those that still use them. We've seen far too many closures of local bank branches in this country, including the impending closure of the local Commonwealth Bank branch in Kenmore in my electorate of Ryan. The closure of the Kenmore branch will have a devastating effect on the community, particularly older and more vulnerable residents who are reliant on in-person banking services. The Commonwealth Bank made a $10 billion profit last year—$10 billion; that's more than the other major banks—and yet they just can't seem to manage to actually service the community. They can't bring themselves to do that. Instead, they'll just keep reaping profits off mortgage holders and small-business owners, which will increase especially now thanks to yesterday's rate rise announcement. It's not too much to ask that they continue to provide basic, accessible service to the community.

The Commonwealth Bank was privatised by the Keating Labor government in the nineties, and the Howard coalition government then finished the job when they were elected in 1996. It was a bipartisan affair. They sold it off without any guarantee of service levels to the public, and now we're in an absolute crisis of bank closures in regional, remote and outer suburban areas. That crisis led to the Senate inquiry into bank closures conducted in 2024, which made a number of recommendations, good recommendations, that could likely have prevented this Kenmore branch closure and other branch closures around the country, like looking at a public banking option and a mandatory code of conduct for branch closures. These recommendations, made by a multipartisan committee, were handed down in May 2024. Since then—utter radio silence from the government. They were meant to respond within three months. Instead, their response is almost two years overdue. It's frankly disgraceful, and it's hugely disrespectful to the countless Australians affected by this issue. I have written about this to the minister responsible, the Assistant Treasurer, and I know my constituents in Ryan are expecting a timely response.

Alice Jordan-Baird (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, brought forward by the Minister for Financial Services, and I commend him for doing so. We live in a digitised world. We've seen these developments, and we've lived them. I remember getting my sister's hand-me-down LG flip phone. My first experiences on the internet and social media were ranking my top friends on Myspace, joining Facebook in early secondary school and my first smartphone. Right now, we're experiencing the AI revolution. We've seen technology develop leaps and bounds over the last few decades. In financial markets, it's no different. Digital assets are reshaping finance right across the globe. We've seen the digitisation of assets—cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies and central bank digital currencies. We're interacting with blockchain technology, the decentralisation of banks as intermediaries and tokens that represent real-world assets such as property and bonds being traded instantaneously. It has picked up globally, and we're seeing it in Australia too. Last year, the Independent Reserve's cryptocurrency index report reported that approximately 6.2 million Australian adults now own or have owned cryptocurrency. That's 31 per cent of the adult Australian population. Digital finance is unlocking new ways to invest, trade and transfer wealth, with faster settlement and lower costs. Right across the world, central banks are exploring digital currencies, and global institutions are experimenting with tokenised securities.

This is all great. It's unlocking capital market and bringing new investments. But the problem here—and there is a problem—is that the digitisation of assets and currency has emerged without regulation. Put simply, financial markets and the way people hold and exchange value have changed, but our laws have not. The legislation has not kept up, and we need it to because without clear rules there are risks. We're talking about a high volatility in markets, concerns about privacy and risks of cyberattacks. And this all comes alongside a lack of regulation or oversight. People are accumulating digital assets without financial law safeguards. We need this now more than ever because, as more people interact with unregulated digital assets, more people are exposed to these risks. And this has real world impacts. Take the collapse of the FTX exchange, the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange at the time. FTX collapsed over 10 days in November 2022, which exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts. This was a colossal fraud. Consumers were devastated and confidence was shattered. There was a massive loss for customers as their funds were misappropriated and mismanaged by the company. Take this as a cautionary tale, because one of the most devastating parts is that regulation could've provided the oversight needed to prevent such fraud and mismanagement.

We need our legislation to adapt to the emerging facets of society. As a Labor government, we're not new to this. Where social media created challenges, we legislated a minimum age ban to protect Australian children. Where gambling online became too easily accessible, we introduced the self-exclusion register BetStop to mitigate harms on individuals. Where digital connectivity blurred work-life boundaries, we legislated the right to disconnect, and the digitisation of assets and currency is no different. Right here, right now, we will legislate to introduce regulations to protect people's assets and livelihoods.

This bill is about trust. It's about transparency; it's about accountability. We're futureproofing our financial system so it remains strong, fair and competitive in this rapidly changing world. We're also reducing and closing loopholes in the digital assets system. Again, there are benefits to digitised assets. When you're trading online, you're getting more efficient and faster transactions and there are reduced costs for you on those transactions. It also allows for increased financial inclusion. Online assets are readily available and accessible, and provide individuals and businesses with equal measures of opportunities to use financial services.

To fully reap these benefits, now and into the future, we need to build trust in the system, and the system needs to be held accountable. To do that, we need to introduce regulations. If you want to regulate something that is not currently properly regulated, the first step is to define what that thing is. That's why we're introducing two new types of financial products into Australia's financial services laws: digital asset platforms, DAPs, and tokenised custody platforms, TCPs.

This will ensure that businesses holding and dealing in clinical digital assets are subject to the same consumer protections and licensing requirements that apply across the financial system, including prohibitions on misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair contract terms, design and distribution obligations and supervision and enforcement by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. We use this kind of regulation to prevent businesses from gaining an unfair advantage and exploiting consumers by making misleading claims about their products or services. It means that consumers are more aware of the risks that they are taking when they interact with digital assets as well as their own rights they have under the financial services laws.

This bill also accounts for licensing, which is another measure for accountability and transparency that does not currently exist in the industry. Operators will need an Australian financial services licence. This ensures that they manage conflicts of interest and have dispute-resolution systems in place. We're using the existing licensing framework, which avoids the need for a new regime and which reduces complexity and compliance costs for businesses. We're also expanding who these licences should be held by to anyone providing services in relation to digital assets or tokenised custody platforms. That means if they're advising on, dealing in or arranging for others to deal in digital assets they will be treated as providing a financial service. This means that, just as all other financial service providers do, they'll also need to hold an Australian financial services licence and they'll be subject to those same measures of accountability.

Operators and service providers should be acting efficiently, honestly and fairly, and this legislation is ensuring that those expectations are met. On top of that, they'll meet tailored obligations for digital assets. This includes minimum standards for custody, segregation, reconciliation and transaction settlement. This is good for consumers. At its core, this legislation is about protecting consumers by mitigating risk.

It's worth noting that digital investments—all investments—do inherently involve risk, but involvement of risk does not negate the need for adequate consumer protections, and it does not absolve the service providers from the responsibility to conduct their businesses fairly and with a degree of transparency. That's why in Australia we have minimum standards in place to protect consumers, and it's why this bill is extending those consumer protections to the realm of digital finance. This is the reason it's so important that we're legislating the two new types of financial products into Australia's financial services laws, DAPs and TCPs. DAPs and TCPs are where operators hold client digital assets to facilitate trading, lending or other transactions.

The key risks associated with these custody focused arrangements—credit liquidity, counterparty, operational fraud and cyber risks—are the same types of risks already mitigated by Australia's financial services laws. By extending Australia's financial services laws to better cover these, we're giving consumers and industry the certainty that the same consumer protections and licensing obligations apply to comparable custodial activities. This includes prohibitions on misleading or deceptive conduct, unfair contract terms, and requiring providers to hold an Australian Financial Services licence. These measures ensure that operators of digital asset businesses are held to the same high standards of fairness, transparency and integrity as other financial service providers.

While we're ensuring digital trading is matching those same high standards which already exist for financial service providers, we're also ensuring it matches the standards which protect Australians deposits in banks and investments in the stock market. These are the standards Australians expect, and we are matching those standards in the digital trading economy. We will not rest on our laurels when we see these new technological innovations come through. This is a change that the sector has been asking for, for a long time. We're giving Australians confidence that when they use a regulated platform their assets are protected by strong standards—the same standards that protect their deposits in banks and their investments in the stock market. We're giving businesses certainty to invest and innovate in Australia, knowing the rules are clear and globally aligned.

This is not regulation for regulation's sake. It is smarter regulation building on proven financial services laws that Australians trust—and trust matters. Trust means increased trading. It means attracting investment, creating jobs and growing our digital economy. Without this sector gaining the trust of consumers and businesses, we can't reap these benefits. That trust is born from regulations that are there to protect consumers and businesses. That's what we're introducing.

We're not alone in this legislation. This bill is aligning Australia with global standards set by the Financial Security Board and IOSCO. It's here to keep us competitive with jurisdictions like the US, EU, UK and Singapore. The EU has already legislated the markets in the cryptocurrency regulation. This mandates that crypto asset service providers must be authorised to meet transparency and consumer protection standards. It protects consumers by introducing rules around transparency and information, asset safeguarding, marketing and advertising, complaints, and more. These rules seek to ensure that in the crypto space consumers are: properly informed of risks; not misled by marketing and advertising; won't lose their assets if insolvency occurs; and have a pathway to raise issues with providers when they arise. The UK is also looking to regulate this space by 2027. And, do you know what? The UK is getting it right. We should be meeting the regulation standards set by overseas jurisdictions.

If we also get this right, which this bill intends to do, we'll be attracting investment, creating jobs and positioning Australia's financial system as a leader in innovation. Global institutions are experimenting with tokenised securities, central banks are exploring digital currencies, and investors are demanding safe, regulated ways to participate. It's unlocking capital markets, and when we do it too it'll be strengthening Australia's competitiveness as a financial sector.

Unfortunately, a factor that we're dealing with is that cryptocurrency remains a vector for scams and fraud, and it's a serious risk. Australians have lost millions to schemes that exploit gaps in regulation and consumer understanding. These Australians have invested their hard-earned money, hoping that a new technology would lead to beneficial outcomes, advancements and efficiencies in digital payment systems. However, what we know is that many consumers have experienced immense volatility and risk not found in traditional investment opportunities.

Take 72-year-old pensioner Dorothy. In November last year, the ABC reported that Dorothy had lost $12,500 to a crypto ATM scam. Dorothy was instructed by a scammer over the phone to withdraw all of her savings and deposit the cash into a bitcoin ATM machine. For Dorothy, this has had really real impacts. These scams put Australians in an incredibly vulnerable position. Dorothy did not deserve to lose that financial security, and she certainly deserved better from our legal systems. Dorothy should have had stronger regulations in place to prevent the scam in the first place. She's not the only one. Scammers have also impersonated exchanges, informing users that their accounts have been breached and directing them to transfer their cryptocurrency to a 'trust wallet' belonging to a scammer. Scammers have even created fake crypto trading apps, targeting potential investors and then leaving them with significant losses.

We've got to do better for Australians. So that's what we're doing now. This bill is good for consumers, it's good for business and it's good for Australia's reputation as a leader in financial regulation. And it's an overdue change—one that the sector has been calling for, for some time now. This bill is mitigating significant consumer losses by addressing regulatory gaps, because digital asset consumers should have the same protections as are available to traditional finance.

This bill will provide a clear, consistent framework for businesses operating in Australia's growing digital asset sector, and it's telling foreign powers that, in a world where technology and our finance systems are evolving so fast, Australia supports technologically-driven productivity, competition and long-term economic resilience. We're giving businesses certainty to invest and innovate in Australia, knowing the rules are clear and globally aligned. I commend this bill to the House.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. Millions of Australians interact with digital assets in some form, as developers, as investors and as users. As this form of payment technology becomes more ubiquitous, it will become part of the lives of many more of us. But, until now, anyone buying or selling digital assets in Australia has done so in a regulatory grey zone that has offered little protection for users and a lack of certainty for legitimate digital asset platforms. This bill is a critical step towards addressing this lack of regulatory clarity, and it comes not a moment too soon. Actually, one of the major criticisms—probably the biggest criticism—I have of this bill is the time that it has taken us to get here, because I think the need for this bill has been urgent and one that I've been pushing for since the previous parliament.

This bill amends the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act to create a regulatory framework for digital asset platforms and cryptocurrency exchanges. It defines digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms as financial products and ensures these platforms are regulated according to Australian financial services law. This regulatory clarity will be a significant enabler of Australia's burgeoning digital assets industry. The Tech Council of Australia estimates that, with the right regulatory and policy settings, digital assets could contribute $60 billion per year to Australia's GDP.

The digital assets sector is also paving the way to modernising our financial infrastructure, and it has the potential to strengthen Australia's competitiveness as a technological and financial hub in the region. As technology changes, our regulation needs to be nimble to keep up. Our regulation should not get in the way of progress but, rather, create the appropriate guardrails to seize new opportunities.

Credible firms, and firms that are trying to do the right thing, just want to know the rules they play by. Investors want confidence in the platforms on which they are buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Consumers want to be confident that they are reasonably protected from harm, regardless of whether the financial product they invest in is traditional or digital. I support this bill because I think it is an important forward step on all these fronts.

Digital innovation is also a critical driver of productivity growth. This is a puzzle that Australia is struggling to solve, but it is essential if we are to ensure our economy continues to grow and our living standards continue to rise. Bringing digital asset platforms under the existing Australian financial services licence, AFSL, framework is a sensible way to regulate this emerging industry in a way that fosters growth without government getting in the way. This framework is well regarded and is well understood, and it allows us to apply the principle of 'same risk, same regulation' to new technologies and products like digital currencies.

My electorate of Wentworth is home to many of these firms and the business leaders who are spearheading the growth of Australia's digital asset sector. These are legitimate and innovative financial firms who want the industry to be properly regulated so that Australian businesses like them can clearly distinguish themselves from less scrupulous operators who risk undermining public confidence in the industry. In a time when many of our tech entrepreneurs and innovators are looking overseas for better growth opportunities, we need to give them every reason to stay. Giving regulatory certainty is an important step in the right direction.

That said, there are opportunities for the government to do more to foster the innovation and growth of our digital asset sector. One way would be to grant ASIC the power to recognise digital currency regulatory arrangements of foreign countries, like the UK and US, as being equivalent to ours. This would open a huge door to those markets for Australian digital currency exchanges and coin issuers. It will also significantly improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of digital currency transactions in and out of Australia.

Finally, while I acknowledge it is outside the scope of this piece of legislation, I also urge the government to continue to focus closely on how it can best protect Australians from the potential harms of digital currencies. Specifically, it is critical to consider schemes that will fall outside the financial services regulatory framework that this bill provides. For example, operators that directly issue speculative tokens to the public as part of so-called 'pump and dump' schemes do not hold client assets, so they would not be covered by this regulation, while still posing a risk to the unassuming buyer. I encourage the government not to set and forget this legislation but rather to continue to work to foster the growth of the digital assets sector in Australia while mitigating potential harms to consumers. These will evolve and our regulatory environment should evolve with it.

Industry stakeholders I've spoken with welcome the much-needed regulatory certainty this bill will give and interpret it as an important signal that the government is shifting its posture to being pro-industry and pro-innovation. Digital assets have the potential to become a valuable and innovative sector of the Australian economy, and I'm glad to see the groundwork laid for its continued growth. For these reasons, I support the bill.

Sitting suspended from 13:27 to 16 : 11

Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025. This is a significant piece of legislation. It's not flashy and it doesn't chase headlines, but it does something far more important. It brings clarity, accountability and confidence to a part of our economy that has grown rapidly, often noisily and, until now, too often without the protections Australians rightly expect.

Digital assets are no longer a fringe interest. They are not the preserve of early adopters, hobbyists or speculative traders operating on the margins of the financial system. Digital assets and the platforms that support them are now firmly embedded in the global economy. Australians are using them to invest, to transact, to build businesses and to experiment with new models of value creation. With that growth comes opportunity. Blockchain technology and tokenisation have the potential to reduce transaction costs, speed up settlement, expand access to capital markets and enable new forms of innovation across the economy.

If Australia gets this right, we can be a serious player in the digital economy. But with opportunity comes risk, and for too long those risks have fallen disproportionately on consumers. We do not need to speculate about what happens when fast-growing financial activity is allowed to operate without clear rules; we've already seen it. Consumers have experienced frozen withdrawals, lost access to assets they believed were held in trust and discovered, often too late, that their assets were co-mingled or inadequately protected. In some cases, digital asset platforms failed not because of market volatility but because of basic governance failures that would not be tolerated anywhere else in the financial system.

These events have had real consequences for people. Australians have lost savings set aside for first homes, retirement or small business investment. Confidence has been shaken not only in individual platforms but in the broader promise of digital finance itself. That erosion of trust does not hurt just consumers; it hurts legitimate Australian businesses that are trying to innovate responsibly and to compete globally.

The absence of clear standards has allowed poor practices to persist and bad actors to hide in plain sight. This bill is a direct response to those failures. It recognises that, while technology evolves quickly, the fundamentals of consumer protection do not. Australians should not face a lower standard of care simply because an asset is digital rather than physical. This bill addresses those problems directly.

Australia's existing financial service laws were never designed to deal comprehensively with large-scale custodial holdings of non-financial digital assets. While parts of the current framework apply in some circumstances, significant gaps remain. In practice, this has meant that businesses could hold large volumes of client digital assets without licensing, custody or disclosure obligations that would apply in more traditional financial arrangements. That gap has created uncertainty for regulators and confusion for consumers, and risk for the system as a whole is encouraged—a form of regulation-by-enforcement where businesses only discover they are compliant after legal action has commenced. This bill replaces ambiguity with clarity by making it clear which activities are captured, which obligations apply and where responsibility lies.

The bill introduces two new categories of financial products into our existing framework: digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. By doing so, it ensures businesses performing functions that look and feel like traditional financial services are subject to comparable obligations tailored to reflect the unique features of digital assets. This is the principle of 'same activity, same risk, same regulation' in action.

Under the bill, operators of digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms will be required to hold an Australian financial services licence unless a targeted exemption applies. Requiring an Australian financial services licence is not a punishment; it is a signal of legitimacy. It ensures operators meet baseline standards of competence, financial capacity and governance. It means they are accountable to ASIC and that consumers have clear avenues for redress. ASIC's supervisory and enforcement role under this framework is not about micromanaging innovation; it is about ensuring minimum standards are set, risks are managed responsibly and consumer assets are handled with the care Australians expect elsewhere in the financial system.

In addition, the bill introduces specific, bespoke obligations designed to address real-world risks that have emerged in digital asset markets. These include minimum standards for asset holding, requirements around transaction and settlement, and tailored disclosures to help consumers understand how platforms operate and the risks that are involved. Importantly, these disclosures are not about burying consumers in technical jargon or dense legal documents. The bill replaces the need for multiple product disclosure statements with a clear, platform-specific guide. This is about transparency that is meaningful, not performative.

I want to address directly a concern that is sometimes raised in debates like this: that regulation will stifle innovation. A well-designed regulatory framework is not the enemy of innovation; it is its foundation. Businesses invest where the rules are clear, stable and predictable. Capital flows to jurisdictions that combine openness to new ideas with confidence in the rule of law. By providing regulatory certainty, this bill supports productivity growth across the economy. Tokenisation and digital infrastructure have the potential to reduce costs, speed up settlement and unlock new forms of economic activity, but only where trust in the system exists. This is how Australia positions itself as a serious and competitive digital economy, open to innovation but clear eyed about the risk.

This bill provides regulatory certainty. It tells businesses what is expected of them, tells investors and consumers what protections they can rely on, and gives regulators the tools they need to intervene early rather than cleaning up the wreckage after the harm has occurred. That certainty is not a barrier to innovation; it is a precondition for it. The framework recognises the importance of startups and small operators in driving innovation. Exemptions for genuinely small and lower-risk providers ensure that early-stage businesses are not burdened with obligations that are disproportionate to the risks they pose. Rather than attempting to define every possible digital asset—a task that would be obsolete almost as soon as it was completed—the bill takes a more sensible, future focused approach. It targets the source of the greatest risk the platforms and the custodial arrangements that hold digital assets on behalf of consumers. Under this framework, those platforms will be subject to the general obligations that underpin trust in our financial system, including obligations to act efficiently, honestly and fairly, as well as prohibitions on misleading conduct and oversight by ASIC.

The bill demonstrates a strong commitment to proportionality. It includes exemptions for genuinely small operators, including a low-value threshold that ensures startups and early-stage innovators are not crushed under compliance costs before they have a chance to scale. It also provides an exemption to businesses where digital asset services are incidental to a broader non-financial activity. These are sensible carve-outs. They recognise that innovation often begins small and that regulation should be targeted when the risk is greatest.

This bill further includes an 18-month transition period. This is not an afterthought. It is an acknowledgement that both industry and regulators need time to adapt. Businesses that are trying to do the right thing will have a clear pathway into compliance, and ASIC will have the opportunity to engage constructively with the sector as the regime comes into force. This legislation does not exist in isolation. It sits alongside other reforms to strengthen the integrity of our financial system and protect Australians from harm, including reforms to our anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing regime, as broader efforts to combat scams and financial crime.

Digital assets have increasingly been used by criminals to obscure transactions, move funds across borders and exploit regulatory blind spots. This bill closes one of those blind spots. Bringing digital asset intermediaries within the financial services framework makes it harder for bad actors to operate and easier for law-abiding businesses to distinguish themselves. I also want to acknowledge the extensive consultation that underpins this bill. This framework did not happen overnight. It is the product of multiple rounds of public consultation, of engagement with industry, legal experts and consumer advocates and of careful consideration of international developments.

The government has listened. It has refined its approach, and it has delivered legislation that aligns Australia with comparable jurisdictions while remaining grounded in its own legal and regulatory traditions. We are already seeing what responsible digital innovation looks like when talent, investment and clear rules come together. Western Australia has become an international epicentre for cybersecurity experts, businesses and leaders, with Perth emerging as a nationally significant hub for cybercapability and innovation. A major reason for that strength is the depth of skills and training being developed in Perth's north.

Edith Cowan University, based in my electorate of Moore, is the second largest cybersecurity training facility in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first Australian institution admitted to the International Cyber Security Center of Excellence following its establishment in 2019. ECU alone produces more than 20 per cent of Australia's cybersecurity graduates, contributing to the more than 66,000 cyberworkers now employed nationally. It's a workforce that continues to grow rapidly.

In my electorate of Moore, this growth is not abstract. Local businesses, startups and skilled workers are contributing to this ecosystem by developing secure platforms, compliance technologies and digital services that rely on strong regulatory foundations. This includes local cybersecurity firms, such as Simformatica, which is led by Peter Stagg, who is a local business owner with whom I have met to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the sector.

I had the pleasure of attending the Joondalup Business Association's breakfast in August last year, alongside the Minister for Small Business the Hon. Dr Anne Aly, where I heard from local business leaders about the strengths and ambitions of our region's innovators. Those ambitions depend on certainty, integrity and clear rules, and from a constituency perspective this matters deeply. In communities like mine, people are curious about new technologies, but they are also cautious. They want to know that if they engage with digital assets—whether directly, through investment products or via emerging local businesses—the rules are clear and the protections are real. This bill gives them that confidence.

Looking ahead, the growing scale and interconnectedness of digital asset markets means that risks which are currently contained could, if left unmanaged, become systemic. Large custodial failures, operational outages or cyber incidents have the potential to spill over into the broader financial system. This bill lays the groundwork for managing those risks before they crystallise rather than reacting after the damage is done. It also supports Australian innovation. Clear rules attract investment. They support job creation in fintech, cybersecurity, compliance, software development and advanced manufacturing. They position Australia as a jurisdiction that is open to new ideas, but isn't naive about the risk.

The question before the House is not whether digital assets will continue to grow. They will. The question is whether we allow that growth to occur in a regulatory vacuum or whether we put in place a framework that protects consumers, supports responsible innovation and safeguards the integrity of our financial system. This bill chooses the latter. It modernises our law without discarding what works, it adapts existing financial services principles to new technology, and it strikes a careful balance between flexibility and accountability. For those reasons, I commend the bill to the House.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. In particular, I acknowledge the excellent contribution by the member for Moore, who I think very clearly explained the rationale for the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 and the benefits that will arise from the passage of this bill in relation to innovation in our economy.

In line with his comments, I would start by saying that digital assets are no longer a niche technology. They are reshaping global finance and transforming how people trade, invest and hold value. Tokenisation in particular is creating new opportunities by turning real-world assets into digital forms that can be exchanged instantly and securely. Australia must keep pace if we want to remain a competitive and innovative financial centre.

But the opportunities come with real risks. We have seen internationally what happens when digital asset businesses operate without appropriate safeguards: customer funds misused, systems breached and confidence damaged. Australians have also lost significant savings to scams and fraudulent schemes that exploit gaps in regulation. These risks cannot be ignored.

This bill responds directly to those challenges. It amends the Corporations Act and the ASIC Act to introduce two new types of financial products: digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. These are the businesses that hold assets on behalf of Australians, and they sit at the centre of the risks we must manage. By bringing these platforms into our existing financial services framework, this bill applies proven, well-understood obligations. It avoids the complexity of designing a bespoke regime while ensuring that comparable activities face comparable regulation—same activity, same risk, same rules.

Operators will need to meet minimum standards for how client assets are held, how transactions are managed and how risks are controlled. A single modern platform guide will replace multiple disclosure documents, giving consumers clear information about fees, custody arrangements, risks and rights. An 18-month transition period will give industry and regulators time to adapt, ensuring that implementation is smooth and practical.

Ultimately, this bill strengthens trust in Australia's financial system. It protects consumers, supports innovation and helps secure Australia's position as a leader in responsible digital finance. It forms part of the government's broader agenda to lift integrity across the financial system, including reforms to scam prevention and anti-money-laundering laws. I commend this bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.