MEMBER FOR MACQUARIE: My question is for the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation. Can the Minister inform the House on any further initiatives that may help Australia become a global financial centre
MINISTER HOCKEY: Mr Speaker, I would like to thanks the Member for Macquarie for his question and I know how he and many of my other colleagues and their constituents benefit significantly from this initiative. Mr Speaker, we have consistently said that in the strategic approach to building a global financial centre we would need to slowly build various initiatives including regulatory reform, taxation reform, a stronger economy and we would also need to develop a partnership between the private sector and the public sector using the combined resources to help to build a global financial centre in Australia.
Mr Speaker, I am pleased to advise the House that we now have a chief executive for the financial centre taskforce, which is based in Sydney. And the current chief executive officer of the Sydney Futures Exchange, Mr Leslie Hosking, has agreed to take that position.
Mr Speaker, it is quite a coup for us to get the services of Mr Hosking in our endeavours. Mr Hosking has been for 15 years the chief executive of the largest financial futures exchange in the Asia Pacific region. It has an annual turnover of 30 million contracts worth around $A10.5 trillion each year. The Sydney Futures Exchange, with its global partnerships, is certainly developing into a major derivatives hub of the Asia Pacific region. It has of course, served well the needs of the Australian business community, and particularly Australian farmers with its financial products and particularly with its derivative products relating to wool and to wheat.
Mr Speaker, this is yet another step in the development of the financial services centre. We are determined to continue to build international relationships, strategic relationships between Australian exchanges and global exchanges and importantly to increase the level of employment in the financial services industry directly linked to the development of a global financial centre.