Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow treasurer is absolutely right: the government has blundered in this, because it will find that, in some way shape or form, it will have to resuscitate this. It will be compelled to. It cannot sustain itself by doing this within Treasury. In time, the corporate sector of this country will also want that to happen—because they will want to see independent advice being put forward. This is the insanity of what we are seeing right now. The other point I would make is in terms of the quality of CAMAC's work: I would commend, as many have done, the work that CAMAC has done in investigating a critical policy area that will drive innovation into the future—that is, the financing of innovation through a platform known as crowdsourced equity funding. They were tasked with this job by Labor when we were in government. They brought down their report in May of last year. The government, saying it would respond, delayed and delayed and has now put the reform process into hibernation, because, apparently, we will not see any legislation put before the House until Spring. The CAMC work in this area was widely recognised as being well researched and well thought out and it is something that is certainly worth discussing further.

See this speech in context