A shed full of tools
Outsider has been wondering whether information given to Parliamentary Committees should be given under oath – something which would help him reconcile recent statements by Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman, James Shipton and his deputy, Peter Kell.
You see, while Shipton was telling the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services that the regulator “uses every regulatory tool available to us” Kell was telling the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services that ASIC may have left some tools in the shed.
Under questioning from counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Michael Hodge QC, Kell was a little vague about what regulatory tools ASIC had used against superannuation fund trustee directors with respect to breaches in the past five or 10 years but acknowledged that, with the exception of the Trio fraud, actions had been rare.
All of which prompted Hodge to suggest that perhaps ASIC had not used all the powers available to it.
Outsider reckons the difference between a Royal Commission and a Parliamentary Committee is that one is definitively closer to the Budget process and, as every handyman knows, it can cost plenty of money to maintain a shed full of tools.
AUTHOR
The Outsider
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