ASIC has become an enabler for shady operators

From left: Sydney accountant Wayne Fraser, bikie 'enforcer' Jason Fahey and ‘professional director’ Jamyson Curthill.

For years, Australia’s supposedly fierce corporate watchdog has been more yapping poodle than growling German shepherd.

Now a Senate inquiry has laid bare a darker truth: the Australian Securities & Investments Commission hasn’t just failed at its core job, it’s become an enabler.

ASIC was supposed to stop the sharks preying on innocent victims. Instead it’s been providing a business model for shady operators who know they will never be held accountable.

These hustlers work on the margins, safe in the knowledge that the regulator isn’t interested in the small fry – the mum-and-dad business owners owed money by companies mysteriously gone bust with their assets stripped; the workers who lose their jobs; the tradies who don’t get paid.

Ordinary Australians have lost billions in the last decade while ASIC dithered.

ASIC switched from a “why not litigate” approach to an enforcement-lite policy that “prioritised co-operation”.

Despite receiving thousands of complaints of unlawful conduct, the regulator took no action in two thirds of the cases reported by the public in 2021-22, the inquiry found. And most statutory reports that insolvency practitioners submit to ASIC go without investigation.

None of this will be news to readers of The Australian who have followed our recent investigation into the activities of Sydney accountant Wayne Fraser, who runs a phoenix-like scheme in which a mystery caravan park resident with no assets became owner of more than 20 companies that went on to be ­liquidated, owing creditors money.

The liquidators of many of the companies had warned ASIC about the frequent appearance of “professional director” Jamyson Curthill in these dubious activities, but no action has been taken to stop him.

Jamyson Curthill. Picture: The Australian

One Sydney shopkeeper who had used Fraser as her financial adviser discovered she’d become a director or owner of more than 20 companies, including a large aviation operation in Broome.

She gave a 56-page dossier to ASIC more than four years ago – and has heard nothing since.

Astoundingly, the inquiry has found that the regulator investigates just 1 per cent of misconduct reports.

Sure, the failures are not entirely of its own making. ASIC’s responsibilities span a maze of 95,000 corporate entities, regulated by fewer than 2000 staff.

But this is a failure of priorities, not just of funding.

The inquiry has made commonsense recommendations, including that ASIC be split up to create a corporations regulator and a financial services regulator.

That’s a start. Better still would be a clean out of the top of the organisation.