ASIC staffing cost $297 million
As financial advisers continue to rail against the cost of regulation, including the ASIC levy, new research has confirmed the level of growth in Australia’s regulatory bureaucracy.
The same research, undertaken by the Institute of Public Affairs, suggests, however, that compared to other portfolios, growth in the level of regulation under the Treasury portfolio has been relatively modest compared to those covered by Climate Change and Environment and Veterans Affairs.
However, it also said the Treasury portfolio is expected to experience the largest increase in the number of staff this year, primarily due to changes in staffing levels within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
What is more, the research confirms that the number of regulatory staff within the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has actually declined along with associated costs, while those attaching to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) have actually gone up.
The IPA analysis shows that the number of regulatory staff within ASIC stood at 1,846 in 2022-23 and stands at 1,810 in 2023-24, while staff costs declined from $313 million to $297 million.
At the same time, APRA’s staffing rose from 853 to 855 with the cost of employing those staff rising from $158 million to $171 million.
The IPA research found what it described as “red tape enforcers” across the Commonwealth public service would be more than 98,800 people, an increase of more than 8,000 people or over 9% over the 2024 financial year.
However, more startlingly, this number represents an 18% increase since 2022.
Discussing its findings, the IPA said that red tape is currently an unsolved and accelerating problem that “is preventing the recovery, development and expansion of the national economy”.
The IPA recommended the Government addressed the issue via a number of mechanisms including removing at least two regulations for every new regulation created and applying sunset clauses overseen by a Sunset Commission.
The only thing Canberra manufactures is more Bloody Red Tape.
Canberra are World record producers of Useless, Costly, Triplicated, PRODUCTIVITY KILLING Red Tape.
Advisers & Australians in generally need to Revolt against this ever growing, self serving Canberra Bureaucratic madness
$171,000,000 over 855 staff = $200,000 per staff member.
What the?
Don’t forget they have to pay bribes to academics, etc for submissions that ASIC has directed.
Also pay for ASIC chiefs personal tax affairs etc.
Plenty of dodgy, unethical costs for ASIC to pay.
FFS the system is soooooo broken
As much as you may not like them and as much as they may be a terrible organisation, they would read these comments and your comments do nothing but want them to target us more. Dial it back a bit
The Jews said the same thing about Adolf Hitler about 5 years before he came to power, Ukrainians said the same thing about Putin in 2022 and look what happened to them. We must all struggle the good fight for Australians. Australians need our protection from the Corrupt, Evil organization called ASIC.
Yeh like playing nice from Advisers and Associations has worked well over the last 20 years hey.
Hopefully some clown in ASIC wakes up.
Hopefully so Pollies wake up.
No longer dialing it back a bit
Something is wrong when the average pay within the public sector is more than the private sector. Its something the government should actually be looking in to more – cost/benefit analysis of red tape and what can be done to within their own ranks. Seems as though the governments solution is to ignore the issue, create more red tape and spending more on staff.
Dear Comrade XTA, it sounds like a very feasible model. Pretty sure the Government took a leaf out of our good comrades books in Russia, learning the model after the collapse of the USSR on how to establish a working model. Pretty sure we’ll re-allocate your services to a Comrade Run Super fund.
More staff for the Licensing department, more staff for the Registration Department, More staff for the Authorization Department. At least 3 more website are needed and by 2026 Advisers to pay for that. The Public Servant that thought up the new registration, authorisation and licensing requirements is fist pumping right now.