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Telcos have blocked 90m scam messages since July

We brought you the news on the blog earlier about the first company to breach Australia’s anti-SMS scam rules, months after the regulations came into effect.

AAP has some more details on the work telcos have been doing to block scams:

Since July 2022, Australian telcos have reported blocking almost 90m messages under the new rules.

Last year, financial losses from SMS scams increased by 188% compared to the previous year, from around $2.3m to over $6.5m.

SMS scams accounted for about 32% of all reported scams in 2022.

Ley denies opposition is a ‘no-alition’

Karvelas:

The Prime Minister use the word ‘no-alition’ to describe your political strategy this week, the reconstruction fund and your opposition to that which was revealed this week. Is this opposition going to take the Tony Abbott approach, and just oppose everything?

Ley:

Not at all. We just want the government to deliver on their promises and we’re not giving them blank checks on the National reconstruction fund either because it’s $15bn. They haven’t explained how it will benefit our manufacturing sector with the imperatives right now that the industry sector needs.

The IMF has warned against these off budget vehicles as $45bn of them in the government’s plan. And it’s not a plan for the economy as it is now. It’s not a plan for rising costs of living, for rising inflation. It’s not a plan that even makes the government’s own promises. So we’re just saying just deliver on your promises Prime Minister.

Ley is insisting that the Liberals are being part of the debate on the Indigenous voice to parliament but that it is the prime minister who is politicising the debate:

Julian Leeser asked a perfectly sensible question in question time yesterday, which was about which part of the Calma-Langton report would you adopt? … It was a basic question about detail. The prime minister just didn’t even answer one single part of it.

Karvelas:

But you could be part of the process. The prime minister is saying be part of the process.

Ley:

We are part of the process … but if the prime minister can’t answer a simple question that wasn’t the least bit political, it was asked in a very flat, factual manner in parliament. And if he answered that in a political way, what that tells me [is] he’s politicising the debate. But I agree, I don’t want to see this politicised.

Ley goes on to say Labor is risking reconciliation by not providing the detail on the Indigenous voice to parliament:

We don’t really have any guardrails around a final outcome with detail that lands exactly where we want it to, which is in the health and welfare of Indigenous Australians. … the prime minister has tied that to the concept of the voice but he can’t explain it. So until he provides the details, I believe it’s actually the Labor party that is putting reconciliation at risk.

Ley discusses byelection battle looming in Aston

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley is speaking to ABC Radio about the resignation of former cabinet minister Alan Tudge and the byelection battle for the marginal Melbourne seat of Aston.

Ley has not weighed in on whether she believes a woman should be preselected, saying it’s a matter for the Liberal party branch in Victoria, which is responsible for preselection.

Tony Barry, the former deputy leader of the Liberal party, earlier told RN Breakfast that the Liberals have no choice but to pre select a woman in Aston.

Ley goes on to say the Liberals will be the “underdog” in the by-election:

By-elections are always incredibly tricky prospects there is no doubt about that… that substantial personal vote will be lost, we also note the Victorian Labor government was resoundingly elected just months ago.

So the Liberal Party will start this election race as the clear underdog, we know that.

Jordyn Beazley

Victorian Liberal MP Joe McCracken uses first speech to come out publicly as gay

New Victorian Liberal MP Joe McCracken has used his first speech to come out publicly as gay, in what is believed to be a first for the state’s parliament.

The MP for the seat of Western Victorian said he did not want to be defined by his sexuality and had difficulty being associated with the LGBTQ+ movement:

Most people would not know this about me, and it may come as a shock to some. I actually do have a partner in my life, but my partner is a he, not a she.

Jack, I want to thank you for all your support and care over the last period of time. It has been so appreciated. I do not know what I would have done without you.

McCracken said it had taken a long time to come to terms with his sexuality, saying he has experienced “doubt, shame, anxiety and many other things”.

He used his speech to say that “LGBT activists in Victoria carefully consider their public perception” and questioned the need for a separate flag to identify the LGBTQ+ community:

Many, including me, have difficulty being associated with the movement.

Most people in the LGBT community just want to get on with living their lives. Gay people do not need to be treated any differently to anyone else – no separate doctors, no separate radio stations, no festivals and no separate flags.

Flags represent nations and countries, and the only flags I will be saluting are the Australian flag and the Victorian flag. They are the only flags that do not discriminate on the people they represent.

The second coming of Josh Frydenberg won’t be via Aston

Katharine Murphy

Good morning. If you were watching events yesterday you will know the Victorian Liberal Alan Tudge resigned from parliament, which will trigger a byelection in his seat of Aston in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. I gather from calls last night and this morning that the former treasurer Josh Frydenberg was sounded out by some local branch members yesterday after Tudge’s position became clear but he’s telling people he won’t run. There’s also a view in some quarters of the Victorian Liberals that Frydenberg, if he’s to return, has to focus on winning back Kooyong. The field in Aston is considered reasonably open. There’s some talk of Roshena Campbell, a commercial barrister, stepping up to be the candidate.

Good morning! Natasha May reporting for blog duty.

The Bureau of Meteorology has this morning categorised Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle as category three intensity, which means offshore wind gusts of up to 224kmh.

As the cyclone heads towards Norfolk Island, a category two impact is expected for Saturday and Sunday.

You can read more about Gabrielle here:

Cait Kelly

Crackdown on spoofing scams

A global messaging company has become the first telco to be investigated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for breaching Australia’s new anti-spoofing rules.

In spoofing scams fraudsters hide their number and display one from a legitimate organisation like a bank, government agency or road toll company.

An Acma investigation found that the SMS-focused telco Modica allowed customers to send SMS using text-based sender IDs (ie a name) without making sufficient checks to ensure they weren’t being used to perpetrate scams.

The Acma chair Nerida O’Loughlin said:

While we did not find evidence any scammers had used the vulnerability created by Modica, its failure to have adequate processes in place put people at risk of receiving SMS scams.

It is vitally important that all Australian telcos have processes in place to ensure their customers sending this type of SMS are who they say they are.

Uniform action is required across the sector as our experience has shown scammers will target the weakest link in telco systems to reach Australians.

The minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, said strong compliance was part of the “government’s comprehensive approach to scams”:

Fraudsters cause financial and immeasurable emotional and mental stress by impersonating legitimate organisations every day, and we thank the ACMA for its important work to help protect Australians.

Since July 2022 Australian telcos have reported blocking almost 90m SMS under these new rules, she added:

One more scam is one too many, and cases like this prove the action we are taking to fight non-compliance by telcos is effective, as well as serving as a warning to other companies.

Daniel Hurst

Indonesian ministers in Canberra for ‘2+2’ meeting

Indonesian and Australian ministers have promised to be transparent with each other about their defence plans, as the Albanese government prepares to finalise a significant defence spending shake-up and the Aukus submarine program.

The Australian defence and foreign affairs ministers, Richard Marles and Penny Wong, held talks with their Indonesian counterparts, Prabowo Subianto and Retno Marsudi, in Canberra yesterday for a “2+2” meeting.

The four ministers committed to transparency about their strategic and defence policy settings. They are due to have another meeting focused on cooperation in Canberra today, while the foreign ministers head to Adelaide for a Bali process ministerial meeting focused on people smuggling and transnational crime.

The previous 2+2 meeting between Australian and Indonesian ministers was held in September 2021 when the Coalition was in power, just a week before the Aukus submarine plans were unveiled.

The lack of a heads-up to Indonesia about Aukus became a difficulty for the former Coalition government to manage (and Indonesia joined Malaysia in expressing concerns about the submarine plans at the time) – so the commitment to transparency in the latest meeting is noteworthy.

Daniel Hurst

No balloons seen over Australia

Australian defence officials say they are not aware of any incidents of Chinese surveillance balloons travelling over Australian territory.

The comments come as a US official said overnight that the balloon was “clearly” for spying and another claimed China had a “fleet” of surveillance balloons of different shapes and sizes, which it has deployed over five continents or regions including south-east Asia.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that the US was in touch with its allies and partners about the matter:

We’re not alone in this … We’ve already shared information with dozens of countries around the world both from Washington and through our embassies. We’re doing so because the United States was not the only target of this broader programme which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.

Asked for an update on whether Australia was aware of any historical incidents over Australia, a Defence spokesperson told Guardian Australia last night:

Defence remains unaware of a similar balloon over Australia, however we monitor such issues closely.

The US shot down a high-altitude balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday after it crossed the whole of the continental US. China said the ballon was for weather observation purposes and had been blown off course, but the US said it was manoeuvrable.

Welcome

Martin Farrer

Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Australian news day. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the main overnight breaking stories before my colleague Natasha May takes the reins.

We have a cracking exclusive story this morning about how the former energy minister Angus Taylor asked his department to consider delaying telling voters about electricity price rises before the May election, then made the decision to do so anyway. He later claimed he didn’t know about the rises. And it turns out Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg were in on the plan as well.

It comes on the day that rising power and gas bills and making housing more affordable will be on the agenda of a meeting of treasurers. The online meeting, hosted by federal treasurer Jim Chalmers, comes as the Reserve Bank releases its latest statement on monetary policy later this morning.

We also have an excellent story from our medical editor, Mel Davey, about how researchers at the University of Sydney believe the key to Covid immunity might lie with the discovery of a receptor protein in lungs which “acts a bit like molecular velcro” and sticks to the spike of the virus. This means the virus is immobilised in people with lots of the protein, possibly explaining how some people don’t become infected and others become very ill.

The US believe without doubt that the Chinese balloon that flew over North America for more than a week before being shot down over the Atlantic was “clearly for spying”. A US official made the claims overnight. Australian defence officials say they are not aware of any incidents of Chinese surveillance balloons travelling over Australian territory.

With that, let’s get going for the day.