Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

by leave—I would like to put on record the committee’s thanks to ASIC for appearing biannually at the statutory oversight hearing. They have a rather large reporting burden to the parliament, as they also must appear at estimates. We thank them for their open review and discussions. At the hearing on 30 November, various issues were covered: the government’s proposed reforms to corporations and financial services regulations, ASIC’s first survey on superannuation fees and costs, professional indemnity insurance for financial planners, AMP’s enforceable undertaking to ASIC to improve the quality of advice provided by its planners, ASIC’s handling of the Westpoint matter and other high-risk mezzanine schemes generally, ASIC’s work to better educate investors, the Vizard matter, implications for ASIC of the Cole commission report, proposed prohibition on hedging executive share options, corporate governance standards of Australia’s listed property trust sector, and implications for ASIC of the expansion of private equity investment in Australia. These issues are all covered in the report.

Numerous issues were discussed at the hearing that have not been covered in the report, and they are also tabled. Most of us may think that this is fairly boring and routine stuff, but when you discover that it is all about how you are going to retire and whether your investments are going to be there, it is actually fairly important that ASIC is providing this oversight. One of the things that we need to commend ASIC on is their shadow shopper exercise to monitor super choice, how funds are moving, and giving advice to people about what to do with their investments. Most of us are fairly clueless about what to do with our investments, and we need to ensure that the people who are giving us the advice are giving us advice that is not skewed to one product by virtue of the commissions they are receiving in respect of that product.

Another fundamental role that ASIC is playing is to educate the public about fraud. I am sure that all of us have had a constituent who has been burnt by Mr Tweed. Mr Tweed is out there getting lists of companies and share registers, and we need to keep reminding the public that if Mr Tweed offers to buy their shares from them, they should check the share price first and not just sign the paper and think, ‘This is a quick way to get money.’ It is not. It is a lot less than you would get if you sold the shares. By virtue of his new schemes, you will probably never see the money. ASIC is keeping up a vigil on that and we commend them for it. We also ask, as ASIC does, that companies take the time and effort to ensure that, if Mr Tweed has asked for their register, they inform the shareholders on the register that Mr Tweed is probably about to lodge on them a share offer that is too good to be true—and it is. It is actually less than you would get if you just went to your stockbroker and sold those shares.

There is other information in the report with respect to the ongoing Vizard matter. We will keep a watching brief on this, as we do believe that there is more action that can be taken against Mr Vizard and other interested parties in that ongoing debate. I commend the report to the House.