Perhaps in sympathy with US President Trump's drive against over-regulation, the Australian Government is planning to slash the permanent annual funding of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission from A$346 million (US$261 million) to A$320 million by 2021.

The Government is also calling on the regulator to dismiss 30 investigators. This is likely to be a boon for the top banks whose executives have been roasted by the current financial Royal Commission, which the Federal Government spent two vigorous years trying to block.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was established under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1983 as part of the Attorney-General’s remit. It, too, will suffer cutbacks. The office's "2017–18 estimated actual" budgeted expenses were A$77.405 million departmental appropriation (total expenses A$88.622 million); the "2019–20 forward estimate" is A$73.753 million (total expenses A$84.481 million). The Australian Federal Police are also reportedly facing a budget cut of A$1.03 billion to A$926 million in the space of four years. As a slight offset, the Government will give A$10.6 million over two years from 2017-18 onwards to ASIC "to assist in their involvment in the Royal Commission," whatever that might entail. Since 2016 ASIC has funded itself through 'guild regulation' in the style of the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and not through direct funding from Government coffers.

Twitter feeds are buzzing with comments such as "we have a banking scandal on fire and this...Government cuts $26 million...bottomless incompetence" and "the Government is responding faithfully to orders from corporate masters."

Opposition Labor MP Matt Keogh told reporters: “The Treasurer is all bark and no bite when it comes to making sure our white collar agencies are fighting corporate crime arising from misconduct by our financial services organisations.”

Financial services minister Kelly O'Dwyer denied the allegation that her Government was cutting anything per se by saying that "20% of ASIC funding is project-driven, so funding and personnel fluctuates from time to time."

Across the Tasman Sea, and in a flurry of very imprecise language, the New Zealand Financial Markets Authority has written to the chief executives of the banks under its control to ask them to tell it what they are doing to deal with the scandal that is emerging from the Australian Royal Commission in view of "the obvious cross-over in terms of entities, people and practices into New Zealand." Without mentioning a single rule as a reason for doing so, it urges the CEOs to tell it whether they have "obtained assurance that misconduct of the type highlighted in Australia is not taking place here." It is evident from the letter that the banks still officially have some time to send in their routine reports about any cultural problems they may have, but the regulator wants them to expedite matters immediately and has chosen a rather aggressive way of trying to coax them into it.