ASIC guarantees that the companies who cheat have an advantage over those that don’t

Our readers joined Bernard Keane in his exasperation at the milquetoast ASIC prioritising the needs of the corporations they supposedly regulate over those of the people ruined by them. Elsewhere, they considered the struggles of the vulnerable workers who make our cafe culture possible. 

On ASIC’s cosy relationship with the financial services industry

Barry Welch writes: Robbing banks is criminal but banks robbing is OK because the financial system — and not ordinary Australians — needs protecting.

Dog’s Breakfast writes:  Well I’m calling BS on all that. Makes my blood boil. A strong finance sector is one that is strongly regulated and policed, where culprits know they will go to gaol and companies know they will get serious fines. That will result in a fair industry, a strong one, where market forces play their part in creating efficiency.

Allowing criminality to be waved through with enforceable undertakings means that companies that take short cuts, that don’t follow the rules, that screw their customers, will always be in front of those companies doing the right thing. That creates pressure on others to cut those same corners, or find new ones.

If they are going to have EU’s they should be Enforced Undertakings, not the weasel word enforceable (if we get around to it). They should be transparent, widely publicised at the companies expense by a strong regulator. This mob aren’t just captured, they are tamed, bound, gagged and lobotomised. Couldn’t think a more succinct account of why ASIC just has to be abolished. They still don’t get it. Propping up a corrupt industry isn’t in their mission statement. 

On the dark side of cafe culture

BeamBox writes: Not enough is said about how these workers are vulnerable and this is a contradiction in a system that depends on your savvy to enforce your own rights. Minimum wage workforces are invariably dominated by the young, migrants and people with lower levels of education.

Telling someone who struggles to read official documents they need to advocate for their own wages and run their own court case is crazy. I’ve worked with people who did not even understand they were not being paid legally. I read one person’s group cert and had to explain to them it was a piece of fraud, and they still did not comprehend what their boss had done to them.

A fair wage system is one where the Government prosecutes more often on people’s behalf. You cannot expect these people to do it themselves, they’re mostly not  inner city, middle class uni student’s with educated parents and a new found thirst for unionism. They’re often vulnerable people who cannot make heads or tails of what is going on and someone needs to intervene on their behalf.

Roger Clifton writes: Yes, pay them properly, for Chrissake. We don’t tip wait staff here in Australia because we believe we are in a decently run country where staff do not have to beg for their dues.

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