Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones and Member for Riverina Micheal McCormack have combined to deliver an anti-scam forum for the people of Wagga Wagga. Photo: Michael McCormack.
Member for Riverina Michael McCormack and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones have put politics aside to better educate residents about the growing rate of online scams.
The Nationals and Labor members arrived in Wagga Wagga on Wednesday (19 June) to provide a seminar about types of scams and how people can secure their information.
“There are so many people who, sadly take advantage of vulnerable members of our community through scams,” Mr McCormack said.
“That is why Stephen [Jones] is going around the country to provide these seminars, and I’m really pleased that he has decided to come here.
“I invited him because I know that the government is doing some good work in this space building on what we did as the government.”
Mr Jones expressed his gratitude for the invitation and explained that the Wagga seminar was one of nearly 80 that he had conducted across the country so far this year.
“I’m so delighted to work with Michael on this issue in his electorate today. Australians have been losing billions of dollars to scammers. Most of these operators are coming to us from overseas,” Mr Jones said.
“At every one of these forums, we hear a story of a person who’s lost their life savings to one of these criminals who are preying upon Australians and trying to rob them of their hard-earned money.
“They’re calling, they’re texting and they’re using social media platforms to prey on Australians because for too long, they thought Australians were easy prey.”
Mr Jones said that for several years the amount of money lost to scams had been doubling year on year. In 2022 Australians lost around $3 billion to scams, however, 2023 was the first year since numbers were recorded to have a drop in money lost, falling from $3 billion to $2.75 billion.
“I’m very pleased to say that due to the actions of the government and the work we have done with businesses across the economy, we have reversed the ongoing trend of money lost; not only did scams not go up last year, [the number] actually came down,” Mr Jones said.
“We want to see reporting numbers continue to climb; what we’ve seen is for too long, people have been ashamed of being scammed.
“We don’t want people to feel like that. We want people to report because the person who scammed one person is going to use the same technique on another person and another person and another person.
“Michael and I agree 100 per cent on our plan to take the war up to the scammers, and by having people attend these forums and report any scams we can win.”
To learn more about potential scams or report any suspicious activity, visit the Scamwatch website here.
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