With holidays and celebrations comes a growing threat from scammers hoping to catch you with your guard down and your mood lifted. I was interviewed on Sunrise on Thursday morning about some of the most common gift card scams Australians need to look out for during the Christmas season.
We handed a significant submission to the Treasury ahead of the 2025 Budget this week, recommending several critical funding priorities to assist families with the cost of living, close the digital divide, improve consumer wellbeing and boost competition in the telco market. I wrote an opinion piece in the Canberra Times about our key recommendations on Friday, which you can also read on our website. ACCAN will continue to advocate on affordability issues in the coming months in the lead up to the Budget and Federal Election.
This week, I was in Canberra meeting with stakeholders. While there, I attended Jelena Dokic’s address to the National Press Club. It was a privilege to hear her story of courage and resilience in the face of family violence. Coincidentally, on the day of Jelena’s address, Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland commenced the formal process to establish new protections for communications consumers facing domestic and family violence – reform which ACCAN has long advocated for. This marks a significant milestone for our sector and the Australian community.
Looking back on 2024, I am filled with pride at what our dedicated team has been able to achieve. Our policy work drives consumer-focused change in our sector– and we lodged well over 80 detailed submissions this year. Many were incredibly labour-intensive, such as our extensive work on the Regional Telecommunications Review, which will shape regional rural and remote policy for years to come. We have made significant progress in introducing direct regulation in our sector, and after much effort have secured the Financial Hardship Standard, Complaints Handling Standard, and Domestic and Family Violence Standard.
Our ongoing work on scams and digital platform reforms has been pivotal, from mis and disinformation to cybersecurity, privacy and the social media ban for under 16-year-olds. We have had a strong voice in significant events such as the shutdown of 3G networks. We have also contributed instrumental policy advice on legislative changes which will ensure devastating telco outages like that experienced by Optus in November 2023 do not occur – or at least are far better managed.
I want to thank you all for your partnership and support throughout the year. Many of our members and friends have informed our important advocacy work in powerful ways throughout 2024 – I very much look forward to continuing the journey with you next year.
ACCAN’s office will be closed from 23 December – 6 January. WebNews will return on 23 January.
I wish you and your loved ones a wonderful Christmas and restful holiday period.
