Successive governments have been earning plenty from the fees paid by those who want to access material from the ASIC corporate database but have not bothered to update the technology used to run the database.
Responding to questions from Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson during a Senates estimates hearing before the economics committee on wednesday, ASIC representatives said they had repeatedly asked the government for funding to upgrade the IT systems but never received a cent.
Activist group GetUp's economic fairness director Natalie O'Brien claimed the government had been overcharging people for using the database, with fees being well above the operating costs.
"The government has been profiting off the backs of journalists and academics who are doing their best to hold corporations to account over their dodgy tax affairs," she said.
{loadposition sam08}The Coalition government put out a tender for the sale of the database and the last date for submission of bids was 29 August.
But thereafter, Finance Minister Matthias Cormann said that a decision on whether to sell or not was yet to be made.
"The registry is bringing in well over $800 million in annual revenue – over 13 times ASIC's annual operating costs," O'Brien said.
"At the same time, they've failed to make basic infrastructure investments to ensure Australia has the technology to effectively police corporate wrongdoing.
"It's basic common sense – if you want to hold private corporations to account, you need to maintain the corporate transparency database."
ASIC workers and journalists are among those who have joined to protest against the sale of the database.
O'Brien said successive governments had milked the ASIC registry for more than a decade without reinvesting in critical tax transparency infrastructure.
"They have let our corporate database fall into a terrible state of disrepair, while beating cash out of those who need access in order to hold corporations to account," she said.
"Given the enormous profit margins, the government could easily choose to make this data free, bringing Australia into line with international best practice.
"Instead they've pocketed all the profits, and hoped no one would notice that the centrepiece of Australia's corporate transparency infrastructure has been left to rot.
"Well, too bad – 80,000 Australians aren't about to let them get away with it."