E&OE
TOPICS: Addressing financial abuse, response to PJC report, experience of victim-survivors, coerced directorships, child support, AI, parliamentary language.
DANIEL MULINO: Good morning, it's really good to be here with so many colleagues for a really important issue and the release of the Government response to a really important report.
I just want to acknowledge I'm standing next to the Minister for Social Services, Minister Tanya Plibersek, and it's been really important to work with her on this report, this response, but on many of the issues covered today.
Michelle Rowland, the Attorney‑General, wasn't able to be here, but she's also been very heavily involved in the development of this response.
We have Ministers Ged Kearney and Andrew Leigh here today as well who have been involved in a number of actions that have already been undertaken, and I want to acknowledge Deb O'Neill and Zaneta Mascarenhas who have been on the PJC at the time when this report was developed and have been instrumental in progressing a lot of these ideas.
We've got Dan Repacholi in his envoy role, his Special Envoy role, he's been involved in a lot of these issues as well, and there are so many other members of the Caucus here. I want to acknowledge and thank all of them for being here. It reflects the importance of these issues.
Today we're here to talk about financial abuse. Financial abuse is an insidious crime which affects a lot of people, particularly women in our community. It's all too often invisible but it can have really devastating consequences.
It can take many forms: financial control, controlling someone's access to money, incurring debts in someone's name, controlling the financial system in a way that it takes the form of abuse. And we need to take action on a regulatory front to deal with this.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on finance and corporations submitted a very important report on this set of issues which included 61 recommendations, and today we respond formally to those recommendations, accepting and supporting, or supporting in principle 58 of those recommendations.
We also set out in detail what the position is on those recommendations and where action has already been taken.
There are a number of areas where action has been taken, and I'll let Minister Plibersek talk about significant areas of investment already in child support. In my own portfolio I've released a discussion paper in relation to the perpetrators of family violence and ensuring that they don't inappropriately benefit from superannuation accounts of the victims, and there's also actions being undertaken by Minister Leigh which he will talk about shortly.
So there's further work to be done now with industry. Many of the recommendations apply to industry. There will be roundtables held over coming weeks with victims themselves, with advocacy groups, and also we'll be holding roundtables with industry to make sure that industry does its part.
Today we're releasing that response, but we're also releasing a consultation paper, a joint consultation paper between Minister Plibersek and myself in relation to a range of options in the taxation and child support system to make sure that there are better arrangements where debts have been incurred on the part of a victim survivor and making sure that systems are more flexible in relation to those circumstances.
So this is a really important day. The Government has already been undertaking some actions, but today we step up in a holistic way responding to this really important report and really important set of issues. And with that I'll hand to my colleague and good friend, Minister Plibersek.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Thank you so much, Daniel. I can't tell you what a pleasure it has been to work with you on some of these consequential and complex issues, you really have brought your full big brain to doing this work, and your big, compassionate heart too, I do appreciate it.
I also want to say it's wonderful to have worked with my Assistant Minister, Ged Kearney and Andrew Leigh. Many of these issues are complex issues because they respond to some very important work done by Senator O'Neill, Zaneta and others on the Committee which really made out how our big systems, financial systems and government systems disadvantage people where there's family and domestic violence.
A lot of people think that when you talk about family violence you're looking for bruises or broken bones, but the simple fact is that controlling behaviour in family relationships can have devastating and life‑long consequences for women and children.
We see this in the child support system, we see $2 billion of outstanding child support unpaid in Australia right now. That money has been denied to children who need it. Just the daily requirements of life, you know, paying for school shoes and excursions, putting food on the table, paying the rent, $2 billion of child support debt that we know about.
But financial abuse can take many forms beyond the withholding of child support. It can mean controlling bank accounts, not allowing women to spend money to go shopping, to buy groceries, being given a small allowance that is too small to survive on.
It can involve coerced directorships or tax debts in the name of a victim that they don't even know are being incurred.
That can prevent a woman leaving a relationship because she's too frightened to leave, she's worried about the debt she's taking with her, she's being told that if she leaves the relationship the abusive partner will go to the police or go to the authorities, and there are so many ways in which our big financial systems are used to control, to coerce, to punish women and children in relationships where there is family, domestic and sexual violence.
As a government we are absolutely committed to responding to this. We have legislation in the Parliament right now relating to our first tranche of changes on child support. We committed $183 million in the most recent budget to reform our child support system to make sure that kids get the support they deserve from both their parents.
We've also, of course, already made changes to our social security system that gives more power to Services Australia to set aside debts that have been incurred because of family and domestic violence. That's a simple, practical recognition of what financial abuse and control can mean in relation to this.
The work that Daniel is doing on superannuation, making sure that abusive ex‑spouses don't end up with the superannuation of a partner that they have tormented in life after that partner dies. Again, very important work.
We are absolutely committed as a government to making sure that our big systems support safety, they're not a barrier to safety for people experiencing family and domestic violence. Thank you.
ANDREW LEIGH: It's a real pleasure to be here with my Ministerial and Caucus colleagues and to be part of these important reforms.
Let me start with a story. Christine is a mother of two in Melbourne who found herself in a relationship in which she was signed up to 12 different companies as a director. Over the course of the coming years she incurred a debt in excess of $10 million.
Christine's obviously a pseudonym, she was supported by EACH, an important financial counselling firm, and her story illustrates the way in which people can find themselves trapped with liabilities that they didn't sign up for. Sometimes the signatures are fraudulent, sometimes they're obtained through coercion, and our systems in the past haven't been good enough at dealing with those situations, haven't been good enough in recognising that this is a victim who can potentially be re‑victimised by being chased for debts that they didn't take on.
We've already put in place reforms which ensure that there is a director identification number linked to companies, and that's part of addressing the issue of coerced directorships.
We're also moving on legislation informed by a discussion paper last year that will deal with the precise issue of coerced directorships and help provide further pathways out.
This is one piece of a significant challenge of economic coercion that Daniel and Tanya have spoken so [indistinct] about.
This reform has been driven in significant part by the leadership of the Parliamentary Committee. So it's my pleasure now to hand over to the Chair, Deb O'Neill, to talk about some of these issues.
DEB O'NEILL: Thank you very much, Andrew, and thank you to my ministerial colleagues for bringing to fruition the very important work that Australians did with our committee.
As the Chair of the Financial Services Committee, I work with wonderful Members of Parliament right across the spectrum, and critically, Zaneta Mascarenhas brought this idea to the Committee of where that financial abuse, an insidious form of domestic violence that can last far longer than the bruises to which Minister Plibersek was referring, was actually alive and operating at an extraordinarily high level in our own community, sometimes in our families and often unobserved by us even though we're connected to those people.
The Committee undertook hearings with so many brave Australian women and their advocates coming and telling us their stories. Stories like a woman who was beaten into a coma and awakes after six months with an escalating debt for a car that she was coerced to purchase in the name of her partner. Stories about a woman and her three children who were financially manipulated by her husband who had put her in a coerced directorship situation, and finally, the lowest act that was such an offence to her that her husband sold the house at an under‑market price to a mate and made sure that the family was out of the house two weeks before the daughter's 18th birthday.
These harrowing stories are recorded on Hansard. This is the political process underway. The report that made 61 recommendations has been taken profoundly seriously by my colleagues here, and I'm so proud to be part of a Labor Government of men and women from right across this nation who have taken this issue seriously, because this response to the report is the most fulsome response we've had to any of the work that we have done. It touches on five different ministerial areas. It's not easy work, but it's ethical work, it's important work, and it's going to change the lives of so many of our Australian families. Women, good men and children will benefit from what this Government is undertaking today.
Couldn't be prouder to stand here with my colleagues, and I want to acknowledge every single member of that Committee who worked collaboratively in the national interest to bring about the telling of this story in a way that it's made this Albanese Labor Government to respond to in very, very considered and practical terms, and I look forward to the further implementation so that the $5.7 billion that this costs our economy and the countless lives that it impacts can be positively affected by what we have done here in our amazing democratic process. Thanks.
DANIEL MULINO: Thank you, Senator O'Neill. Thank you for your work on the Committee, on your work on this report and your ongoing work. Thank you to Zaneta and to all the other members of that Committee. And with that, I'll open for questions to Tanya and myself.
JOURNALIST: Have you been satisfied with the level of bipartisanship in this area, and do we need to change the conversation around child support in Australia? How [indistinct]?
DANIEL MULINO: I'll just make a very brief opening and then hand over to Tanya on the child support. But look, in relation to the issues that I've been dealing with there has been a good level of bipartisan support.
So the issue that I've put a discussion paper out already is on perpetrators of family violence not benefitting from receiving the victim's accounts through a testamentary disposition, and there's been very good discussions right across the Parliament on that, and more generally in the area of financial services there have been very productive conversations.
I think there is an understanding across all parties, the Opposition, the crossbench and the Greens that there is a need to deal with these issues sensibly and in a way above politics.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Yes. I'd say by and large there has been bipartisan support for the child support changes that we're proposing in this first tranche of legislation.
I would note that the One Nation leader has not been supportive of changes around child support and has called child support a rort and says domestic violence is a two‑way street and made other comments like domestic violence leave being a paid holiday.
So I'm not sure where One Nation is at on these reforms, but I would certainly say that making sure Australian kids get financial support from both their parents is a most basic expectation. You have a child, you are financially responsible for that child throughout its life, and it's very disappointing when we see people who deliberately structure their finances in a way, they don't put in tax returns, they minimise their income in a way that denies their own children the money they need to have a decent quality of life. I would hope that every Member of Parliament would be able to get on board with doing something about that.
JOURNALIST: It sounds like there's many pieces of legislation or tranches. How far through the process of resolving all of these issues would you say we are?
DANIEL MULINO: Well, so there have been a number of areas where we've made progress, as Minister Leigh indicated, when it comes to coerced directorships, there's been a discussion paper and a lot of policy progress in relation to the issue that I just flagged, a discussion paper and submissions and a lot of progress.
There are ‑ with anything to do with superannuation, there's nuance, we need to get across the detail, we don't want unintended consequences, but this is an area of priority, and we will make progress on that.
And then I'll just say in Minister Plibersek's area, and I'll let her add to this, but there's been a significant amount of investment and real progress already.
JOURNALIST: Minister Leigh has recently raised a concern around AI and carve‑out [indistinct] through a gendered lens is their concern that AI might super charge abuse?
ANDREW LEIGH: I think it's certainly a concern. Every time we're looking at scams or other forms of abuse there is a risk of artificial intelligence being used.
I was speaking to a banking executive this week about the way in which some of the fraudulent documents that are coming before them are now AI fakes and they're of higher quality than they were before.
So AI is potentially a force for good in boosting productivity, but we're also seeing it being used in nefarious ways, and that is definitely part of the way in which we're approaching this set of issues.
DANIEL MULINO: Can I just add on scams, AI is being used by perpetrators more and more, and I've been at community forums with a lot of my colleagues actually, and was recently at one with Minister Plibersek, and one of the things we have to warn people about is that anybody can be a victim these days because the sophistication is ramping up.
But what I would also say is that AI's being used by the regulators, and we need to see AI being used more and more by the financial services sector, which it is, so that they can proactively reach out to their customers and warn them about potentially risky transactions, and we're seeing more and more of that. So AI is also being used on the defence team, and we need to see more and more of that.
And just on scams, I'll just also flag that we are in the process of developing codes, three sector codes of designated banks, of designated digital platforms and also the telecommunications sector, and we're going to be having three codes come into operative effect on 31 March next year. We're also seeing dispute resolution processes across all those three sectors.
Australia is at the leading edge in the world when it comes to an ecosystem approach to scams. So when it comes to the risk of AI we're really at the cutting edge of other countries looking at our approach on that.
JOURNALIST: Can we also hear from Zaneta about what this response means to you if someone had brought this to the inquiry and what it means [indistinct].
ZANETA MASCARENHAS: I always feel quite emotional, and the first time that I had a conversation with a constituent it was on a door, it was an adult father ‑ or it was a father with an adult daughter, and he explained to me that his daughter had gone through such severe financial abuse that her partner denies the person having enough money for sanitary products. Right? Like for me that is fundamentally about power and control and inflicting pain, and I just think it's absolutely disgusting.
But I think that West Australians really showed amazing leadership during this week, we heard some powerful stories from different West Australians, Shenane Hogg, who basically is beaten into a pulp, went into a nine‑month coma, ended up with $56,000 of debt, $16,000 of that was interest incurred when she was in a coma. Like it's just absolutely outrageous.
When she reached out to her financial institution, when she asked for help, there was no reprieve, no recognition of what she went through. It took her 18 months to learn how to walk, and like that was just learning how to be physically able to be able to live a normal life. She ended up with a traumatic brain injury and this massive debt.
And then we also have the amazing story of Julie Adams whose daughter Molly Wilkes committed suicide, had tried to leave her partner six times, and her partner ended up with her superannuation. I think that it's just so heartbreaking to lose a daughter, but then for the perpetrator to get the superannuation benefits.
And you know what, they are the stories that have inspired all of these members to say it's unacceptable. We need to change the system, and what's really interesting is that sometimes people in this place say that backbenchers can't make a difference, but I challenge that, we absolutely can, and I'm going to say that I'm really proud of my Labor Party Ministers and that they're taking this issue really seriously.
JOURNALIST: A report out last year found that only 15 per cent of [indistinct] abuse victims reached out for help and when they did there was a gap in services. Do we need more specialist economic abuse services [indistinct] in this country?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well, we have substantially increased financial counselling, and one of the reasons is that we know that there is a gap there when people are, you know, having their toughest times, they need support with professionals, and having access, better access to financial counselling is an important part of that.
The other thing I'd say is we're right now working on the next phase of our national plan to end violence against women and their children, and this gives us an opportunity of really highlighting and driving some of these emergent areas.
You've talked about the use of AI in financial abuse. We know that what's happening in the online world is spilling over into real‑world violence in an unprecedented way and having the opportunity of the [indistinct] plan to take up some of these new issues and live new solutions, I think it does even more of an opportunity to deal with some of these emerging issues.
JOURNALIST: I just want to raise a point made by Anne Aly recently about the language that was used in The House.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Yep.
JOURNALIST: What did you make of that? And she also raised concern about female politicians in particular facing death threats online, something you spoke about this weekend, [indistinct] for yourself and Anika Wells. How much of a concern is that, and how important is language in this place?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Look, I think it is important that we temper our language and that we are conscious that when we use violent language in public that there is some nut job out there who hears that in a way that potentially spills over into real‑world threats.
There is an unprecedented level of online abuse particularly targeting female MPs around the world right now. We've seen an explosion, and some of it's driven by bots, some of it's not real, we know that, but the objective of all of it is to silence female MPs, and knowing that, I think it's very important that as Members of Parliament we do our best not to buy into that violent language because it plays into the hands of people who don't have the interests of our democracy at heart, they don't have equality as an objective, they're trying to shut down democracies and democratic debate.
So I think that language that was used yesterday in the House of Representatives was regrettable. I think the withdrawal was very petulant and partial withdrawal, and you know, we get it.
DANIEL MULINO: Thank you.