Mr CONAGHAN (Cowper) (09:34): I rise to speak on the statement on significant matters regarding consumer protection reforms. On 21 November, Commonwealth, state and territory ministers met and agreed that consumer priorities for 2026 would include progressing nationwide reforms to protect consumers from unfair trading practices; introducing prohibitions and penalties to enhance the effectiveness of consumer guarantees and the supplier indemnification regime; focusing on addressing risks associated with unsafe products such as lithium batteries and e-micromobility devices such as e-scooters and e-bikes; identifying opportunities to strengthen Australia's product safety framework; continuing implementation of the Scams Prevention Framework and efforts across governments, including with the New Zealand government, to make Australia and New Zealand harder targets for scammers, with particular focus on property payment redirection scams. I welcome any focus that is protecting Australians. That is the first job of government. But if you step outside the Canberra bubble, the reality is very different. Australians are not being protected. Nowhere is that clearer than in superannuation. Today more than 12,000 Australians, many close to retirement, have had over $1 billion of their super taken as a result of the collapse of the First Guardian and Shield investment schemes. This is now the largest superannuation failure in Australian history and one of the most serious consumer protection failures we have ever seen in our financial system, and it all happened under this government's watch. I've sat with some of the people who have lost everything. They aren't wealthy people. They're hardworking Australians who have been let down, such as a detective from Queensland nearing retirement—he thought he'd done everything right—and members from the Save Our Super group Melinda Kee; Peter Spencer-Franks, a bus driver; Brad Waterman; Denise Cocquyt, a teacher; and Mike Poland. They are hardworking Australians who have saved diligently and followed all the rules, but they find themselves with no super because this government failed to protect consumers and because ASIC failed to enforce the law. Losing your super doesn't just mean losing money; it means losing the future you worked for. They trusted the system would protect them. It didn't, but it should have, and I hope to work constructively, as I always do, with Minister Molino to do what is right by them. This situation, unfortunately, is a familiar pattern. Listening to the minister's address this morning reminded me of the review Labor commissioned in 2022 into managed investment schemes, the very structures used by First Guardian and Shield and in recent collapses like Lion Property Group. The government initiated that review after failures, including those of the Sterling Income Trust, Trio Capital and Timbercorp. Labor promised they wanted to strengthen the regulations and increase consumer protections. Stakeholders called for tighter oversight and greater transparency. But after that review concluded, we heard nothing. When the moment came to protect consumers, Labor buried the review and any uncomfortable recommendations it contained. Since then we have seen further collapses—First Guardian, Shield, Lion Property Group and others—unfolding under the very same framework. None of this has occurred in a vacuum. We have a corporate regulator whose job it is to enforce the law, protect consumers and maintain confidence in the financial system and, on First Guardian and Shield, ASIC failed to do that job. Warnings were raised years before. Concerns were put on the record. Patterns of behaviour were visible well before the collapse. ASIC had the powers it needed, but it chose not to use them. The victims I speak to feel that they were failed twice—first by the scheme itself, then by the regulator that did not act when it mattered. The Senate's review into ASIC, led by Senator Bragg, identified profound issues in ASIC's structure and performance, but, instead of responding to that review, the government has simply ignored it. But, whatever the government might think about that review, it predicted many of the issues that we are now seeing. And, rather than strengthening oversight of ASIC, Labor has introduced legislation to weaken it, stretching independent reviews from every two years to every five. Designed to protect consumers, this was a safeguard of the financial services royal commission—but this government has now weakened them. We also have a treasurer who, after more than three years in the job, still refuses to issue ASIC with an updated statement of expectations. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that he has no expectations—and, unfortunately, ASIC are meeting them. I have higher expectations of ASIC than the Treasurer. There are a lot of good people in the organisation that care immensely about ensuring better outcomes for Australians. They just lack the right focus from the government. Everyone I speak to across the spectrum says ASIC is not delivering for consumers, yet from this government we hear nothing but silence. It's not good enough. There is another part of this story that goes to the heart of consumer protections, and that is the blowout in the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort. Because the government have dragged their feet on ensuring ASIC fulfils its enforcement role and because misconduct has not been prevented early, this scheme is now facing escalating costs and multimillion-dollar special levies. The estimate for 2027 is already $137 million, and that's before First Guardian and Shield are even factored into it. Someone will have to pay, or victims will go without. Advisers who have done nothing wrong have already been tapped out. They cannot pay any more. So the only place left for the government to turn is everybody's superannuation, and that's exactly where it's heading. The CSLR was intended to be the final safety net when everything else failed, but, under this government, it is becoming the default response because prevention is weak and enforcement is delayed. A scheme that continually needs special levies just to stay afloat is not a sign of a system working. It's a sign of a system breaking, and consumers are paying the price. We see the same disconnect in the approach to scams. Earlier this year, the government passed its Scams Prevention Framework. The coalition supported it because anything that helps Australians avoid scams is worth backing, but we said then—and we say it now—it would be judged on its results, not press releases, and the results are clear. Between January and September this year, Scamwatch received more than 159,000 scam reports, with losses of $260 million. That's a 16 per cent increase on last year. After all the promises, all the announcements and all the branding, Australians are losing more money to scammers, not less—once again, big talk, weak delivery. For most Australians, consumer protection isn't abstract. It's something they rely on every day. When they put money into their super, deal with business, sign up for a service or try to avoid fraud, they expect the system to look after them, they expect problems to be caught early, and they expect safeguards that work in practice, not just on paper. Across too many areas, that basic expectation is not being met: in super collapses, in weak regulatory oversight, in compensation schemes pushed to the breaking point and in rising scam losses and people falling through the cracks of a system meant to protect them. Australians deserve more than a government that loves to make announcements but is weak on delivery. They deserve a government that prevents harm, responds early and puts their interests first. We will continue to raise with the government all of these issues, we will continue to stand up for Australians who have been let down, and we will continue pressing the government until consumer protections are something people can genuinely rely on—not just something they're told to believe in.