Mr Kerr asked the Treasurer, upon notice, on 4 June 2003:

(1) Can he provide a detailed statement of the criteria applied by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), to determine which complaints initiated by the public are made the subject of ASIC enforcement action.

(2) Is he aware that ASIC has declined to take action in a matter involving allegations that a Tasmanian investor had been misled by his investment adviser due to the adviser's valuing a potential investment using a methodology other that that allowed under the Australian Accounting Standards and failing to disclose that fact; if so, will he investigate; if not, will he explain how such conduct could be described as not of general significance to the market.

Mr Costello (Treasurer) —The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

(1) For operational reasons the criteria which government agencies such as ASIC use to select the cases that they will investigate are kept confidential. For that reason, it is not possible to provide a detailed public statement outlining those criteria.

The criteria that ASIC uses has been supplied on an in-confidence basis to the Office of the Ombudsman.

(2) ASIC is aware of a recent complaint made to it that answers this description. In order to ensure that all aspects of this matter were properly taken into account, ASIC reviewed its original decision in this case. Once the review was undertaken, AS

(3) IC again concluded that it had no proper role in this case. The circumstances outlined in this case did not identify a matter of critical importance to the financial services market. Having made relevant inquiries and examined the issues thoroughly, ASIC was satisfied that the issues raised in this case did not identify a broad, ongoing market problem.