An address to the Insurance Council of Australia by ASIC Commissioner Jillian Segal, 10 August 2000.
Introductory remarks and overview
Thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon on 'ASIC Issues'. I should note that I am addressing you one year after Alan Cameron spoke at the last ICA Canberra Conference.
Whilst many of the issues he spoke about are still on our mutual agendas - the landscape, on a number of fronts including the markets, the products and the regulatory framework - has moved on considerably.
Against this backdrop I would like to speak to you today about a number of issues in the last 12 months including very briefly ecommerce, our appro ach to our insurance regulatory and enforcement activities and, going forward, some of the issues we expect to be working on such as preparing for implementation of the FSR Bill.
There are many issues I don't have time to deal with, which have been mentioned by others today, for example; constitutional issues, our competencies policy (information about which is on our website) and the work of IOSCO. I should just mention that, of course, ASIC is a very active participant in the work of IOSCO and recently hosted, in Sydney, the annual IOSCO conference. It was at this conference that IOSCO agreed to recommend to its constituent organisations that the IASC international accounting standards be adopted for cross-border listings and offerings.
I would like to begin by addressing some brief general remarks in response to two issues covered by previous speakers namely the 'global village' and e-commerce and, in particular, what they imply for consultation and communication with your industry.