A fly on the wall when someone puts a fly in the ointment

There have been times when Outsider just wanted to be a fly on the wall – you know the sorts of occasions – Queensland’s Annastasia Palaszczuk seated next to NSW’s Gladys Berejiklian or almost anyone running into Western Australia’s Mark McGowan.

So, Outsider would have liked to be a fly on the wall when Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chair, James Shipton, took back control of the regulator from his deputy, Karen Chester, having spent the best part of three months on the sidelines while he was subject of a Treasury inquiry into his expenses and those of his former other deputy, Daniel Crennan.

You see, in Shipton’s absence Chester had to front a Parliamentary Committee or two and had some fairly caustic things to say about the manner in which the whole imbroglio around Shipton and Crennan’s expenses had arisen and been handled, including mentioning a certain “opacity” around the issue.

Outsider might be wrong, of course, but after listening to Chester’s evidence to the committees he was left with the feeling that she would have felt very comfortable if the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, had thought to make her time as acting ASIC chair, permanent.

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Now, of course, Shipton has resumed his role as chair for around three months while the Government seeks to recruit his successor which means that he and his deputy must, well, try to get along although it seems unlikely to Outsider that it will be business as usual.

Outsider feels sure that both Shipton and Chester will operate professionally in pursuing the best interests of taxpayers but he feels equally sure that there will be a good deal of interest in who makes the shortlist to be Shipton’s successor.