After being badly exposed by the royal commission for failing to stand up to the financial sector, it has been revealed that Australia’s regulators have commissioners and staff to accept secret gifts from the industries they regulate. From The SMH:
Presents in recent years include champagne and vintage wines, expensive dinners, concert tickets, airline upgrades and customised “training seminars” supplied by stockbrokers, banks, law firms and industry lobby groups…
The gifts of dinners revealed here were exposed only due to freedom of information requests and media pressure…
ASIC, the ACCC and APRA are independent authorities, but their in-house monitoring of gifts and hospitality reflect a wider problem across the Commonwealth public service.
Who will regulate the regulators?
Back in 2014, the Murray Financial System Inquiry recommended a board of oversight to ensure that the regulators properly fulfil their mandates, which was opposed by APRA and ASIC and ultimately rejected by the Abbott Government.
Given the abject lack of transparency and accountability exhibited by our regulators, along with their failure to discharge their duties, Labor should call a high level inquiry into them when they take office.
The Australian public deserves better.
