Pensioners and students weren’t the only ones to feel the sting of the Budget knife, with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission seeing its funding cut by $120 million over the next five years.
The 2014/15 Federal Budget, handed down by Treasurer Joe Hockey last week, outlined a reduction in spending across a range of Government agencies, including the financial services regulator. ASIC’s funding will be reduced by $26 million in 2014/15, and then by a further $32 million each year for the next three years.
Some of the reduction in spending will be achieved through staff cuts, with 50 jobs to go in the next twelve months, and a further 200 the following year.
According to the relevant budget paper, the Government expects ASIC will adjust its priorities to ensure it continues to meet its statutory objectives. The Government said savings from this measure would be redirected to repair the Budget and fund policy priorities.
Responding to questions at a post-Budget session in Sydney last week, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Steven Ciobo, said the cuts were in part designed to encourage the financial services industry to self-regulate.
It will always be… our preference for self-regulation
“We are wanting all industries, not just the financial services industry, to be more self-reliant and self-sufficient… Our approach traditionally has always been to believe that there should be more focus and emphasis on industry self-regulation.
“Clearly there’s a need for government and regulators to be on the playing field, in relation to certain activities. But there’s a lot of activity that the former government was pretty keen to regulate and specify through policy statements and those types of things, which we are less enthused about doing,” Mr Ciobo said.
“It will always be, as a general statement of principal, our preference for self-regulation, over the need to have a tax-payer-funded regulator intervening on the field,” he added.
