A fun game – playing 20 Questions with Bert and ASIC
Outsider is old but well remembers playing that game “20 questions” in which you get to ask 20 questions of someone to determine the right answer.
In fact, Outsider must be very bloody old because when he googled “20 questions” he noted that it was described as a 19th Century parlour game made popular in the US. But he digresses.
What Outsider can say, though, is that Queensland Liberal backbencher and former financial adviser, Bert Van Manen, appears to be very good at 20 questions, especially when it comes to seeking to prise information out of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
How does Outsider know this? Because Van Manen placed precisely 20 questions on notice to ASIC after the last hearing of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services of 2020 and received most of the answers he wanted just before Christmas.
And among the answers provided by ASIC were juicy tidbits such as the fact that some of the regulator’s staffers have provided advice to clients and some have been paraplanners which Outsider, personally, finds very reassuring.
But perhaps the question ASIC should be asking itself is who is asking Bert to ask the questions?
AUTHOR
The Outsider
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