Dear Commonwealth Ombudsman,

One of the challenges a whistleblower has is obtaining sufficient evidence to support his or her allegations of serious misconduct. It can often be a long process to gain this evidence which is obtained in a piecemeal fashion.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services ('Joint Committee') has requested documents from the Commonwealth Ombudsman related to an attempt by a member of an occupational pension scheme established by a Trust Deed executed on the 23 December 1913 in the State of South Australia to gain access to this founding Trust Deed`and legally valid amending Deeds and who was prevented from gaining access by ASIC.

A complaint was lodged with the Commonwealth Ombudsman in relation to the failure of ASIC to enforce section 1017C of the Corporations Act 2001 without fear or favour.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman lodged a request for information on the scope and operation of Section 1017C of the Corporations Act 2001 with ASIC with an expectation that a response would comply with Section 13 of the Public Service Act 1999.

Instead of providing accurate outline of the scope and operation of Subsection 1017(2) and subsection 1017C(5), ASIC Officer Monique Adofaci only made reference to subsection 1017C(2) which was not relevant to the complaint, when the relevant provision was subsection 1017C(5) and related Regulations.

Thus Ms Adofaci contravened Section 13 of the Public Service Act 1999 by providing false and misleading information to the Commonwealth Ombudsman by a deliberate act of omission.

Since ASIC was blocking access to the genuine Deeds, the assistance of the Attorney-General's Department of South Australia was required to obtain copies of the genuine Deeds of Variation - some of which have been provided to Senator John Williams.

The documents I seek are copies of all correspondence between the Joint Committee and the Commonwealth Ombudsman including covering letters and emails plus attached documents related to this complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Correspondence between ASIC and the Commonwealth Ombudsman provided to the 'Joint Committees' is also included in this FOI Request, including the document signed by Ms Adofaci if a copy of this document was provided to the 'Joint Committee'.

The occupational pension scheme was known as the Elders IXL Superannuation Fund from 1982 to 1990. This pension scheme was later known as the Foster's Group Superannuation Fund and the AusBev Superannuation Fund.

Yours faithfully,

Phillip Sweeney