It’s time for a fresh start for the ASX’s corporate governance principles for our listed companies. Starting with a clean sheet of paper and one simple question in mind: what governance model will best serve the national interest in the years ahead?

The current process run by an autonomous corporate governance council has run its course and been overtaken by events. It’s a huge committee that’s independent of the ASX even though it operates under its brand, and is not really accountable to anyone. As often happens with large public sector committees, it has a lot of varying agendas at the table, a habit of issuing “communiques” like it’s the G20, and a natural tendency to add rather than subtract from a jointly authored document that needs unanimous sign-off, agreement that has proven impossible in any event this week.