The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (PJCCFS) chaired by Labor Senator Deb O’Neill has refused to publish submissions many bank victims made to its inquiry into “the financial services regulatory framework in relation to financial abuse in Australia”.
Literally tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of financial victims in Australia last week will have heard a Senate inquiry call for the abolition of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and wondered: “What took so long?”
Under pressure from not one but two Senate inquiries into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the corporate regulator has finally taken action against the directors of the Sterling First rent-for-life scam.
The Sterling First fiasco proves the importance of the current Senate inquiry into ASIC, which is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fix the pathetic regulator so it actually polices financial crime.
Sterling First tenants Beryl and Ray Taylor will be in WA’s Supreme Court in Perth today and tomorrow fighting to stay in their home for which they have pre-paid many years of rent.
Senator Andrew Bragg established his Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into ASIC investigation and enforcement last October, seizing on the revelations of the Adams Report.
Independent economist John Adams had shown from ASIC’s own data that the so-called “tough cop on the beat” of Australia’s financial system is anything but, as it investigates fewer than 1 per cent of complaints it receives.
The deadline for submissions to the Senate’s ASIC inquiry has been extended to 28 February—submit your experience of ASIC failing to police financial predators.
The chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has fired a shot across the bow of the Senate Economics Committee ahead of its inquiry to ASIC’s investigation and enforcement.
