ASIC Must Show Clean Hands

In a strange presentation at Senate Estimates today, the corporate cop ASIC has confirmed there has been an inquiry into ASIC's Deputy Chair.

This fact was confirmed after an effort to cover up the inquiry was attempted by ASIC’s legal team. An inquiry into a Commissioner of the corporate regulator must not be hidden. Australia’s corporate cop must have clean hands on transparency. It must be beyond reproach.

I welcome the admission of the existence of the inquiry into the Commissioner provided by ASIC’s leadership. ASIC narrowly averted misleading Parliament and further undermining its reputation.

From ASIC’s admission, we now know this inquiry was instigated by the Treasury and that a letter has been sent from Secretary Kennedy to ASIC Chair Longo. The letter is said to contain a summary of the findings of the report. ASIC has been asked to supply the Kennedy letter and questions have been provided to the Treasury in order to obtain the report.

I thank the Senate Economics Committee for facilitating this important transparency process. ‍ **

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