Vulture City - How our bankers got rich on swindles

Westpac is hit with a court case and audit regulation hearings are happening. Tom Ravlic offers some thoughts about why the repeated twaddle about 'did people learn anyting' gets on his nerves.

Submissions talking about auditors and conflicts to the audit regulation inquiry currently underway in Canberra show a great deal of ignorance about the way in which the system works.

Senators in Canberra should ask ASIC all about what it is doing in the area of audit enforcement because inspections are not enough.

new research demonstrates that some people's fear about audit market concentration in the hands of Big Four is nonesense.

Vulture City is now released and there are some people to thank. They are in this podcast. And I make some observations about my career as well because a couple of people have been with me in various ways for a very, very long time.

Anyone engaging in the audit debate needs to get their head around the fact that truth in auditing is non-existent. Don't believe me? Read the auditing standards.

Michael Roddan prompted some thought on audit tenure and public interest. Blame Roddan.

Regular appearances before parliamentary committees ought to be the lot of professional organisations, but will parliamentarians care enough to do it?

ASIC can do a deeper dive into accounting firm compliance with independence rules. It has to in my view, but greater funds and resources need to be provided so this concept can fly otherwise anything that is done will be piecemeal and insufficient.

Tom Ravlic takes issue with the time the government will take to design and implement a new disciplinary regime as implemented by Hayne and takes a quick look at the most current report from the ASIC on enforcement.