Peering through the contours of Australia’s corporate world is one of the most important ways for Australian journalists to hold the powerful to account.

Countless endeavours of investigative journalism in Australia rely on accessing corporate information held by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic). From uncovering undisclosed directorships and shareholding by political figures, mapping out the corporate holdings of Australian contractors or working out the scope of ininves investment and donations, this data is one of the most important tools available to us.

It’s well known that the fees for accessing the Asic register are extremely high for the general public. Australia is an outlier with these costs, which sit far above those for similar searches in the UK or New Zealand. Papua New Guinea does not charge for access to its register.

The potential privatisation of the Asic register could further increase those costs if the terms of any sale permit an unbridled monopoly to take it over. Open letters and other campaigns are now under way to highlight the risks of a potentially prohibitive cost increase, particularly for news reporting.

Many journalists may be unaware that they can gain access to many documents held by Asic for free. This is perhaps what reporters should be most worried about losing in the event the register is privatised.

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In December, the penny dropped on the fact that a wider suite of documents could be more freely available to journalists than previously thought. On a panel at the Storyology conference, Ross Coulthart told the audience that journalists did not have to pay to access Asic company records.

I was on the panel with Coulthart, along with Kate McClymont and Caro Meldrum-Hanna, and was surprised to hear this. I had never heard that journalists were entitled to any form of concessional access.

But Coulthart was right. Company searches were indeed free for journalists under the Corporations (Fees) Regulations created in 2001. He tweeted out the regulation shortly after the event.

Ross Coulthart (@rosscoulthart) #storyology - How Journalists can get free ASIC company extracts - Corporations (Fees) Regulations #kate_McClymont pic.twitter.com/geb31XABIt

But these regulations, which have been on the books since 2001, went far further than just company searches. A separate clause also grants free access to “recorded entries about a corporation or a registered scheme, or a director or secretary of a company, on all registers maintained using a computer system”.

That’s potentially almost everything Asic holds. And it includes one of the most important and costly tools for journalists – director and shareholder searches – that allows the interests of a particular person to be disclosed.

Asic initially suggested that the regulations did not allow free company and director searches for journalists. It said the rules only obliged them to create the searchable online register known as ASIC connect; not to grant free access to the detailed documents themselves.

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When pressed, the regulator clarified that journalists were indeed entitled to access company and director searches for free, although documents still required a fee. While it initially considered creating an online platform to provide direct access to ASIC connect, it eventually declined to do this.

In March, Asic said the “process had been approved” to allow journalists to gain direct access to its registers. It does not appear to have publicised this process anywhere online. Journalists must fill out a form every time they wish to access documents about a particular company or director.

Alternatively, a concessional code can be generated by Asic to be provided to a third party broker. This code reduces the regulator’s fees but includes the private fees for brokers. However, it substantially reduces the costs of director and company searches that would ordinarily be incurred.

But there are problems with the terms of access that Asic has proscribed. The decision not to create an online search platform for news organisations makes the process extremely cumbersome and time-consuming. Asic could take a day to get back to a reporter, often far too long to wait in the lightning fast news cycle. And separate requests need to be lodged for every company and director extract. The corporate regulator is complying with the letter, but not the spirit, of the regulations.

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And not all journalists will be eligible for access. The regulations were made in the early 2000s, a very different era for news. It specifies the ABC, SBS and publishers of newspapers as those who can gain access. But it leaves out online news organisations entirely. Buzzfeed, Junkee or Crikey may not enjoy the same privileges.

Journalists at some of Australia’s big news organisations are aware of this access now, and more than a few have started using it. But all of this newly discovered access could be jeopardised if the register is privatised. Such a move would probably lead to the amendment or repeal of the regulations. That’s the real battleground for journalists if Asic’s register is privatised.

These regulations should be overhauled to allow much greater access for journalists, not less of it. Our journalism depends on it.