McClelland promises clean slate

The business community would also benefit from knowing that lawyers undertaking national transactions were covered by the same regulatory framework. “The first and foremost goal should be to try to achieve a more simplified and sensible framework or model law and have that applied on a co-operative basis rather than using the corporations law or a mix of other powers” to create a federal law, he said. He accepted that this was an area of law that was jealously guarded by state and territory attorneys-general. But “this is one area where I would pick a fight with my state and territory colleagues”. Mr McClelland said the previous effort to achieve a national system of regulation had come from “the big end of town”. But he said there was now much broader support within the profession for an improved system of regulation.