Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024
Submission Date: 16 January 2025
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee in response to its inquiry into the provisions of the Scams Prevention Framework Bill 2024 (the Bill).
This submission contains high-level, preliminary feedback on the Scams Protection Framework (SPF) that the Bill proposes to insert into the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (the Act). The Law Council makes the following recommendations:
- the Bill should be amended to include a transitional period of at least six months;
- proposed section 58AE of the Bill should be amended to require public consultation on a draft designation instrument, and to include consultation responses as a matter to which the Minister must have regard;
- the definition of ‘scam’ in proposed section 58AG should be amended in order to more comprehensively capture various forms of scam activity, including phishing and remote access scams;
- further consideration should be given to the definition of ‘small business operator’ in the Bill, in order to more fully align it with the existing ‘small business’ definition under subsection 23(4) of the Australian Consumer Law;
- the Bill should reserve civil penalty provisions for systemic conduct in breach of the overarching SPF Principles or SPF Code, rather than making any failure to detect or prevent an isolated scam event subject to a civil penalty;
- clarification should be sought from the Treasury about the following matters:
- the rationale for the inclusion of proposed subsection 58BT(3), relating to the sharing of SPF personal information, and this rationale should be inserted into the Bill’s Explanatory Memorandum;
- the basis for limiting the safe harbour period to a maximum of 28 days in proposed section 58BZA of the Bill; and
- the intended operation and interaction between the various dispute resolution processes provided for under the Bill;
- the Bill should provide clear and simple liability principles (including for the apportionment of liability) to accompany the internal and external dispute resolution processes and assist in the determination of compensation and promotion of the rule of law; and
- the Bill should be amended to incorporate specific details about the external dispute resolution model to be followed, in addition to a clear process for handling multi-party complaints.
Last Updated on 30/04/2025
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