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Financial planners are more often kicked than heaped with bouquets in the Federal Parliament and so when politicians come along prepared to listen to financial planners and challenge the positions and decisions of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission then they are much to be treasured.
And in recent years financial planners found some parliamentarians prepared, if not to champion their cause, then to at least not condemn them out of hand to question why financial planners were having to deal with presumed guilt even when events were perpetrated by accountants, product manufacturers or lawyers.
And among the parliamentarians to have given financial planners are fair hearing were the Liberal Member for the Sydney Northern Beaches seat of Mackellar, Jason Falinski, Queensland Liberal backbencher and former financial adviser, Bert Van Manen, and, of course, the somewhat pugnacious Queensland Senator, Amanda Stoker.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg moves to permanently water down ASX continuous disclosure rules
Posted
WedWednesday 17
updated
ThuThursday 18
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was quizzed about the changes at a Parliament House press conference.
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Much of the news you see reported in the financial press comes from company announcements to the stock exchange.
Key points:
The government will move legislation to permanently relax disclosure obligations on ASX-listed companies and their directors
Experts say the changes will make it harder to run shareholder class actions and may lead to an increase in insider trading
Labor says it will try and convince Senate cross-benchers to join it in opposing the change
ASIC chair James Shiptonâs Canberra grilling cancelled
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We were so looking forward to seeing Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman
Karen Chester, following the pairâs âmarriage counsellingâ by Treasurer
Josh Frydenberg.
ASIC chairman James Shipton and deputy chair Karen Chester, who acted in the top job during his absence.Â
Alex Ellinghausen
Alas, the hearing has been postponed. And it could be quite some time until the committee reconvenes, with one member privately telling us it had âfallen apartâ.
Liberal
James Paterson (of the puerile Wolverines) stood down as chairman on Monday to assume the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (neither of which the good senator has been blessed with a surfeit of).
“In this case, ASIC undertook a direct approach to a number of possible suppliers and recommended suppliers. Direct approaches to particular suppliers was considered appropriate as the work required specialist expertise and needed to be completed within a short-time frame,” the regulator said.
“The scope of the work was set out by email to the identified supplier, Dr Breakey, who had the necessary expertise, capacity and availability to prepare the submission and attend a roundtable on 29 June 2018 in response to the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority consultation about:
i) the draft Code of Ethics for financial advisers; and
ii) the proposed guidance on educational pathways for all advisers developed by FASEA.
Answering questions on notice from NSW Liberal backbencher, Jason Falinksi, as part of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, ASIC outlined the funding it had provided, but claimed that it had not benefited any specific consumer group.
“Beyond its broad consumer protection role noted above, one area of Commonwealth laws that ASIC administers is those relating to the provision of financial advice,” ASIC said. “These include laws going to licensing and the obligations that attach to holding a license, disclosure, standards of conduct and advice, conflicts of interest, codes of conduct approval, and dispute resolution and remediation.”