Wale sounds cautious note

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 37

Wale sounds cautious note

Wellington reporter The new chairman of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Mr David Wale, yesterday warned against overenthusiastic regulation as a way to clean up the sharemarket. His comments come after a speech last week by the Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, which was critical of sharemarket ethics, and warned of stiff new measures flowing from the Russell Inquiry into the Sharemarket. The report is due to be published on April 11 or 12. Mr Wale challenged Mr Palmer’s assertion that the New Zealand sharemarket was too small to be selfregulating. ."That’s a very subjective comment,” he said. “I don’t know where anyone would get the evidence and quite

what that means." He urged the Government not to confuse the sharemarket with the commercial scene as a whole, in which share trading was just one part. "There are also directors, auditors, lawyers, and companies,” he said. “You cannot legislate for the guy who wants to be foolish with his money.” At the height of the sharemarket boom, even people with very small amounts to invest had wanted to be players, and the market could not stop them. Attempts to restrict the size below which orders could not go were ruled out as anticompetitive, he said. “Prudential ways of investing money have been a lesson which everyone has learned in the last year or two,” Mr Wale said.