Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the members for their questions. Let me start by addressing the member for Griffith's question about the ASIC register. She has asked about the process that has been put in place and about the evaluation of the potential sale of the ASIC register—how that has been conducted and who has been consulted.

Let me say that the government announced in the 2015-16 budget, following consideration of a scoping study, that it would undertake a competitive tender process to market test the capacity of a private operator to upgrade and operate the ASIC registry and to develop value-added products. The government have always said that we would maintain ownership of ASIC's registry data. The government have also said that we are absolutely committed to open data in this government—absolutely committed. Before any decision is made about the sale of the ASIC register—and that decision would need to be made by cabinet—we would need to be completely sure that it met those very high standards we have set and that it would be in the national interest to do so. It is going through the evaluation process, and all relevant stakeholders have, in fact, been contacted for their views.

Going to the member for Durack's question about spending, debt and deficits, she makes a very excellent point. She knows that, when the last coalition government—the Howard-Costello government—was elected and came into government, they inherited a $96 billion black hole from the Labor Party. There was no money in the bank but, certainly, money needed to be paid back, and so that is what they did. They steadily worked away at repaying the $96 billion.

See this speech in context