Senate demands unredacted AFCA Dixon Advisory documents

A Federal Opposition Senator has sought to force the Government to produce documents around the collapse of Dixon Advisory and the manner in which it has subsequently been handled by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).

NSW Liberal Senator, Andrew Bragg has succeeded in having the Senate support a motion which he says is aimed at getting to the bottom of what he described as the Dixon Advisory/ASIC/CSLR scandal.

Bragg said a Freedom of Information request had sought briefing documents from within Treasury regarding the proposed Compensation Scheme of Last Resort and Dixon Advisory in addition to correspondence from outside Treasury about the eligibility of Dixon Advisory claimants under the proposed CSLR.

He said certain documents were not released or were heavily redacted on the basis that they contained information about AFCA’s business and financial affairs, and that the relaes of such information could reasonably expected to adversely and unreasonably affect AFCA’s business, commercial or financial affairs.

Bragg’s notice of motion to the Senate argued that the fact that the documents contained information about an organisation’s business and financial affairs, and whether disclosure of such documents would affect that organisation’s business and financial interests, was not sufficient public interest immunity ground to withhold the documents from the Senate.

It said AFCA’s status as an external dispute resolution scheme that deals with financial services complaints, authorised by the responsible minister to operate the EDR scheme warrants a heightened degree of transparency which outweighs concerns about commercial confidentiality

The Senate motion requires the Minister representing the Treasurer to produce the documents by no later than midday today (Thursday).