Petition: Stop the assault on egregious cases of corporate misconduct

This email is from award-winning investigative reporter Michael West. He has uncovered major corporate tax-dodging scandals by some of Australia’s biggest corporations using data from the ASIC corporate ownership database. Read below his fears of what might happen if the Turnbull Government proceeds with privatisation, and what you can do to help stop it.

I’ve been a business journalist for over 20 years. During that time, I’ve uncovered many egregious cases of corporate misconduct – from Australia’s largest coal company paying almost nothing in tax on billions in revenue, to the $4.5 billion siphoned offshore by Newscorp.

I couldn’t do this work without the ASIC database. That’s why I’m speaking out against this Government’s efforts to put Australia’s corporate database under corporate control.

Click here to find out about how journalists like myself use the ASIC database to shine a light on corporate wrongdoing, then share it with everyone you know.

The ASIC database contains more than ten million records on Australian businesses. It’s the best paper trail we have to track corporate financial affairs, including tax dodging, money laundering and human trafficking.

Already, the charges levied by ASIC for this supposedly public information are believed to be the highest of any country in the world, at $38 a pop. Now, this Goverment wants to sell the ASIC database to a private operator. What are they thinking?

How could anyone believe that, by delivering the nation’s corporate database into the hands of a private monopoly, the public interest could possibly be served?

We need to work together to throw the lid off this sell off while there’s still time to stop it. Can you share this video and help spread the word?:

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/asic-privatisation/share-this-video/journalists-are-mad-and-you-should-be-too?t=OqWbPcRnm

If all my years investigating corporate affairs has taught me anything, it’s that we need more corporate scrutiny, not less.

Michael West
Investigative Journalist

PS from GetUp – Are you a journalist? Click here ..

to add your name to the Open Letter calling to stop the ASIC sell off and free corporate data.
Anne