On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, I present the committee’s report entitled Report on the 2008-09 annual reports of bodies established under the ASIC Act.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

Again, I want to thank the secretariat—both the outgoing secretariat and the new secretariat that we have this year—and all of the committee members for their diligent and hard work and their bipartisan approach to these matters. It is always a pleasure to chair a committee that operates in such a manner.

The report on annual reports examined, under section 243 of the ASIC Act 2001, the annual reports from a number of additional bodies established under the act. These include:

• the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board
• the Australian Accounting Standards Board
• the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board
• the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee
• the Financial Reporting Council, and
• the Takeovers Panel

The committee found no urgent matters that need to be addressed.

Work of the Committee

The committee appreciates the importance of ASIC’s work. It intends to give a greater strategic focus to its oversight hearings, with an increased number of hearings spread throughout 2010.

The view of the committee is that it can play a constructive role not only through oversight but by the use of oversight hearings to inform the parliament and the public about the work of ASIC and its ongoing role in maintaining good order of the Corporations Act in the business sector. I commend the report to the House.