PwC Busting Laws Are Useless Without Enforcement

Labor’s new announcement to enact PwC-busting laws is not credible without a commitment to law enforcement. In isolation, it is a hollow commitment.

Law enforcement is more important than piling new laws onto the ever growing statute books. Unless the Government is serious about fixing ASIC and corporate law enforcement in Australia, the new initiative is dead on arrival.

The Government campaigned on transparency and integrity but is now covering up ASIC’s enforcement inaction and internal misdeeds.

PwC partners felt they could use the Government’s private information and monetize it.

The same principle applies in a series of cases the Senate is examining where it seems that people feel they can manipulate public accounts and engage in insider trading without being prosecuted.

With the assistance of the Government, ASIC is blocking the Senate’s access to closed case files, as it doesn’t want us to discover their “investigative methods”. This means it will be business as usual, where white-collar crime is tolerated.

A big problem is that Labor has no interest in transparency inside the corporate cop.

At Senate Estimates in February, ASIC attempted to cover up a $200,000 Treasury investigation into the conduct of the ASIC Deputy Chair. Then in March, the Senate ordered the Government to hand over a report into the Deputy Chair.

But the Treasurer Jim Chalmers blocked production and falsely claimed that “the investigation did not find all of the allegations substantiated”. The Government has clearly decided to keep ASIC’s governance issues and lax enforcement record secret.

This will only lock in the same weak law enforcement structure which paved the way for scandals like PwC. Until Labor stops facilitating ASIC’s coverups, their corporate law reforms are hollow.

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