Senate urges transparency on coercive powers

A key Senate Committee has supported legislation extending the powers of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) with respect to search warrants and telephone intercepts, but not without urging that the regulator be obliged to detail its use of such powers in its annual reports.

In doing so, the Senate Economic Legislation Committee picked up on many of the concerns expressed by the Rule of Law Institute of Australia and civil liberties groups about the manner in which the new legislation, the Corporations Amendment Bill, would extend ASIC's coercive powers.

The committee's report, tabled this week, said that if ASIC was granted the extended powers with respect to search warrants and telecommunications intercepts, it should be required to state how often it used those powers in its annual report.

The committee report stipulated the regulator had used each of its powers, the number of times it referred an insider trading or market misconduct matter to the Australian Federal Police for investigation for the possible use of its phone intercept power and the "the nature of the use of these powers in each circumstance".

"The committee notes that law enforcement agencies are required to report to the relevant Attorney General and to Parliament the numbers of interception warrants applied for and executed each year," the committee report said. "ASIC, and the interception agencies that investigate insider trading and corporate misconduct offences, should be subject to similar disclosure requirements.