Regulation must come with accountability and resources, says IPA

“The IPA has long advocated for the need to appropriately fund and resource the regulators to enable them to do their job,” said IPA chief executive Andrew Conway.

He explained that while on face value having a regulatory body regulating the regulators may appear as regulatory overkill, if it achieves the desired accountability outcomes, it may have merit.

“One may question if something is broken, why not fix it before funding yet another layer of regulation," Mr Conway said.

“Regardless, what we do not want to see is further regulatory burden being filtered down on the shoulders of small business operators."

The IPA's Small Business White Paper points to the need to look at regulator culture and adjust behaviours that do not inflict unnecessary burden on SMEs.

"In particular, research shows that an increasing number of small businesses continue to be concerned with the impact of laws and regulations on their ability to run their businesses and innovate," Mr Conway noted.

"We also do not want to see the targeting of small targets due to additional pressure placed on ASIC to enforce, while there are more complex and yet bigger fish to fry."

He explained that the royal commission findings point to many cases where prosecution should have applied and noted that "all must be done to support those that have been aggrieved through the unscrupulous behaviour of the banking, mortgage brokerage and insurance industries".

“Up until recent times, ASIC have had the regulatory teeth on paper but not the resources and funding to actually bite so they should be given the good grace to prove themselves,” said Mr Conway.