Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, I present the committee's report entitled Statutory oversight of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission together with evidence received by the committee.

In accordance with standing order 39(f) the report was made a parliamentary paper.

by leave—I am pleased to speak to the August 2011 report of the Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on the statutory oversight of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. Section 243 of the ASIC Act directs the committee to inquire into— (Quorum formed)

I would like to thank not only all of my colleagues for coming in to listen to my speech on the report but also members of the opposition who have so kindly come in to help us to attain the quorum much quicker than otherwise possible.

Section 243 of the ASIC Act directs that the committee is to inquire into and report on ASIC's activities, and matters relating to those activities, to which parliament's attention should be directed. In preparing the report, the committee held hearings with ASIC officials, representatives from the Rule of Law Institute and Professor Comerton-Forde of the Australian National University. I would like to thank ASIC for their continuing cooperation and assistance and the representatives from the Rule of Law Institute and Professor Comerton-Forde for the additional insight they provided.

The hearings in June 2011 were the first opportunity for the committee to speak to Mr Medcraft in his new role as chairman of ASIC. Mr Medcraft explained to the committee how ASIC's activities are guided by a strategic framework with three priorities: confident and informed investors and financial markets, fair and efficient financial markets, and efficient registration and licensing. Guiding the development of this framework are four key factors—namely, legislative responsibilities, systemic or regulatory risk, stakeholder expectations and government policy.

The committee notes, with approval, ASIC's approach to the development of its strategic framework and particularly approves ASIC's commitment to identifying areas of potential risk. On the basis of the information provided to the committee, it is apparent that ASIC recognises the importance of the commission's educative role in promoting prudent and fully informed self-regulation by market participants. The committee considers that the suite of financial literacy initiatives that ASIC provides is a necessary part of promoting confident and informed market participation and is a key tool to assist gatekeepers and investors to self-manage their activities.

The committee was also pleased to hear of the formation of ASIC's Emerging Risk Committee. There is clear merit in the continual analysis of the system to identify areas of potential risk. Such analysis is a core element of maintaining and improving Australia's financial system that is part of ASIC's legislative objectives. This will be an area that the committee will focus on at future oversight hearings.

In turning to supervision of the stock market, a key priority for the committee is to track the transfer of responsibility for supervision of real-time trading on Australia's domestic licensed markets from the Australian Securities Exchange to ASIC.

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