Differences of opinion are what makes markets work. But when it comes to the health of Australia’s public markets, three of our wiser heads are in furious agreement.

At the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s symposium on the future of markets this week, Barrenjoey co-founder and executive chairman Guy Fowler, Future Fund chief executive Raphael Arndt and University of Melbourne professor of finance Carole Comerton-Forde were unanimous in their view that regulation wasn’t responsible for the dearth of new IPOs, the poaching of listed companies by private equity, and the takeovers of a series of blue-chip names.