Shipton proposes ‘stand-alone’ insurance regulator to unburden ASIC

In a blog post published on the Financial Review, James Shipton has argued that the corporate regulator is “chronically” underfunded and needs “Canberra’s immediate attention”.

“ASIC has never been a funding priority for the government, except during the 2018–19 royal commission. This needs to change,” Mr Shipton wrote.

Labelling it “one of the most complex regulatory agencies in the world”, the former chairman said the corporate regulator’s remit is simply too large.

“It is being asked to do too much with too little”.

As such, Mr Shipton encouraged right-sizing ASIC’s jurisdiction and proposed several key structural reforms.

“First, a separate civil enforcement and prosecutorial agency that would take serious actions referred to it by ASIC, APRA, and, perhaps, other regulators should be considered,” he explained.

“This would ringfence funding for deterrence and allow this single body to quickly get matters to court.”

The “other regulators” referred to above, he noted, would include stand-alone regulators responsible for superannuation and insurance, respectively.

“Superannuation is vital to every single Australian, and its regulation is currently shared between ASIC and APRA, mostly splitting prudential and conduct oversight. Instead, there could be a single regulator that looks at both,” he said.

Mr Shipton also argued that a legislative fix is necessary given ASIC’s “overlapping statutes” that leave it with “Swiss cheese” governance arrangements.

Moreover, he questioned whether ASIC should be as independent of government as the Reserve Bank of Australia.

“In my experience, different governments, and even different ministers within the same government, applied different independence definitions,” he said.

To read the full opinion piece, click here.