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This is a joint submission, co-drafted by Consumer Action Law Centre (Consumer Action) with CHOICE and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), and made on behalf of:

Consumer Action
CHOICE
ACCAN
Financial Rights Legal Centre
Westjustice
Financial Counselling Australia
Consumer Credit Legal Service WA
Consumer Advocacy Network WA
Financial Counselling Western Australia
Mob Strong Debt Help
Brotherhood of St Laurence
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.

After almost five years of tough talk and promises, the Government has presented Australians with a weak and confusing set of proposals that will offer only basic protection against scams.

Government has chosen to implement a highly complex approach to protecting Australians from scams. Their chosen ecosystem model is proving immensely complicated, costly and time consuming to bring to life. At its absolute best, the ecosystem approach could be highly effective at preventing and disrupting scams. However, this requires far more courage and ambition from Government than is evident in this proposal.

Furthermore, for this framework to succeed, regulated entities must genuinely invest in protecting Australians from scams and making this system work. In contrast, what we are seeing is industry negotiating to protect their own interests and reverting to harmful and deceptive victim-blaming narratives to distract from their own failure to prevent scams. Government must be prepared to force industry investment and concrete action to ensure this is a system that works for Australians, not one that minimises corporate liability.

Read the full submission and recommendations (PDF).