Opposition fails in bid to amend short-selling bill

Shadow federal financial services minister Chris Pearce yesterday moved a failed amendment in the House of Representatives to the Government’s short-selling bill, describing it as a “Trojan horse”.

“The Government’s plan is to pass this bill and to later attempt to remedy its significant failings through the passage of regulation; thereby circumventing the parliamentary legislative process,” he said.

Pearce’s proposed amendment was to remove a “substandard schedule in an otherwise ambiguous bill that attempts to regulate covered short selling in the market”.

The amendment was lost and the Government used its majority in the House of Representatives to pass the bill and send it to the Senate.

In moving the amendment, Pearce said the bill “failed to provide an effective and transparent legislative base in its current form to regulate short selling in the market”.

“Key stakeholders are greatly concerned about how the disclosure provisions would actually work in practice, as no detail is provided,” he said.