ASIC’s $21.1 million consultant bill

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

13 July 2023

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) spent over $21 million on consultants or other external personnel in just eight months, according to evidence provided to a Parliamentary Committee.

Answering a question on notice from Tasmanian independent Senator, Jacqui Lambie during Budget estimates, the regulator declined to detail what the consultants and other external personnel were actually doing.

“ASIC considers it would be an unreasonable diversion of resources to identify the nature of work of each of the 166 contracts as listed on Austender,” ASIC said.

“The vast majority of engagements however are for labour hire and consultants and relate to IT skills that are not able to be recruited due to the non-ongoing, short-term requirement. Consultancy and IT skills are required to support major business transformation programs, such as the Modernising Business Registry Program.”

ASIC said it also considered that it would be an unreasonable diversion of its resources to identify if any of the consultants it used augmented work ordinarily conducted by Australian Public Service employees.

“Expenditure on consultants/labour hire for the period 1 July 2022 to 28 February 2023 is $21,145,958.33 ex GST,” the ASIC answer said.