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Chapter 1
Statutory oversight
1.1
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services
was established by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act
2001 (the ASIC Act). Section 243 of the ASIC Act specifies the committee's
duties, which include:
(a) to inquire into, and to
report to both Houses on:
(i) the activities of the Australian Securities and
Investments Commission (ASIC)... or matters connected with such activities, to
which, in the Parliamentary Committee's opinion, the Parliament's attention
should be directed...
1.2
This report is presented in execution of the committee's duty under paragraph 234(a)(i).
1.3
As the corporate, markets and financial services regulator, ASIC is
responsible for monitoring the integrity of Australia's financial system. Areas
within the Commission's remit include promoting financial literacy and consumer
education; corporate, financial services and consumer credit regulation; and the
supervision of trading on Australia's licensed equity derivatives and futures
market.
1.4
In enquiring into ASIC's activities, the committee seeks to determine
whether ASIC is fulfilling its statutory responsibilities. In considering ASIC's
performance, the committee has regard to section 1 of the ASIC Act, which
directs ASIC to:
- maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial
system and entities within that system in the interests of commercial
certainty, reducing business costs, and the efficiency and development of the
economy;
- promote the confident and informed participation of investors and
consumers in the financial system;
- administer the laws that confer functions and powers on it
effectively and with a minimum of procedural requirements;
- receive, process and store, efficiently and quickly, information
given to ASIC under the laws that confer functions and powers on it;
- ensure that information is available as soon as practicable for
access by the public; and
- take whatever action it can take, and is necessary, in order to
enforce and give effect to the laws of the Commonwealth that confer functions
and powers on it.
Gathering evidence
1.5
The committee held a public hearing on 22 June 2012. The committee
acknowledges ASIC's ongoing co-operation.
1.6
This report reflects evidence taken at the hearing. Witnesses who gave
evidence are listed in Appendix 1. Copies of the Hansard transcript of the
hearing have been tabled for the information of the Parliament, and are
available on the committee's website.[1]
Additional information
1.7
Several questions were placed on notice. Those questions, and responses
to them, are published in Appendix 2.
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