GORMAN, Mrs Sarah, Chair, FinTech Australia KASAPIDIS, Ms Elinor, Chief of Policy, CPA Australia MORGAN, Mr Jack, Head, Policy, FinTech Australia ORD, Mr Gavan, Lead, Business Investment, CPA Australia CHAIR: Welcome. I apologise to the witnesses. We had some technical difficulties that made the previous session go a little bit longer than it otherwise would have. I understand that information has been provided to you regarding parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to this inquiry. I'd now like to invite you to make some short opening remarks before we get underway with questions from committee members. Who would like to start? Mrs Gorman : I'm happy to go. I'll keep this really short. FinTech Australia is the independent industry voice for Australian fintech. I think it's worth commenting very quickly on who we represent, because it actually impacts the perspective that we bring to the hearing today. We represent a very broad cross-section of companies, from early-stage, seed-stage startups to high-growth companies, through to established leaders across payments, lending and other things. Importantly, many of these businesses, which are often 11-plus years old, are small businesses themselves. As many as 73 per cent—we're to launch FinTech's annual census results next week—have fewer than 50 employees. Many of our members use AI, generally applying it to defined tasks, accounting et cetera, but it's also worth stating that most of our members operate under financial services or credit licences as well. Fintech plays an enormously powerful role in our economy and across the things that the committee members care about, whether that's productivity, innovation or how we deliver greater competition and productivity and better consumer outcomes. One of the things that I'm really proud of as Chair of FinTech Australia is that most of our members—and it's in excess of 70 per cent—were only founded in the last decade. We now have a sector in Australia that's worth close to $14 billion in economic value. That's happened in under 10 years, from a starting base of nothing. We're now seeing the next gen come through. But, for me, AI has the potential to magnify the impact. We've got companies that are generating anywhere between $1 million and $100 million in annual revenue. For me, the exciting question is: how do we maximise and extend that impact? That brings me to my second point. We believe that the national conversation around AI is too narrow to date. We hear a lot about data centres still and about generative AI, copyright models and compute. Absolutely—these issues all matter. But there is a really significant AI revolution that's happening well beyond our cities and in the physical economy. I'll give you a brief example from the company that I represent and founded, which is DAS, or Digital Agriculture Services. We started building and working in AI five or six years ago. We founded DAS on a pretty simple insight, and that was that there was enormous innovation happening on farm but very little happening in the off-farm decision-making ecosystem, specifically financial services. We saw lending and insurance outcomes that weren't fair—and with good consumer outcomes. What we've been doing is using AI and satellite imagery specifically to build sovereign capability around entirely new signals. That is turning complex environmental information into new signals. The headline here is that the AI that we've built is now as accurate as an experienced agronomist or farm manager standing in the field. And no-one's talking about this kind of AI. We see those same types of examples happening right across our fintech ecosystem. That brings me to my third point—four clear priorities around AI. First, we're a big proponent of proportionate and coordinated reform. Many of our members, as I said, are already heavily licensed and regulated and comply with the legislation in place. Second is agentic commerce and competition. We need to ensure that consumers have control over their delegated authority and access to suitable payment providers and clear dispute resolution rules. Third is meaningful transparency and trust. Consumers absolutely need appropriate information about how AI is being used, particularly where it affects financial decisions, and we're seeing a lot of innovation in this area. Fourth is Australian domestic capability and sovereignty. I think we have an enormous opportunity to ask: where does Australia want to sit in the value chain? Do we want to be a consumer here, or do we want to actually be leading at the front of that value chain as well? That's where we think the sovereign capability conversation needs to be broader. That's it. Thank you. Ms Kasapidis : CPA Australia is one of the world's largest professional accounting bodies. We have more than 176,000 members across corporate, public service and advisory—both in Australia and in over 100 other countries and regions. Like FinTech Australia, we also do a lot of scanning business technology report—and what we're seeing is that conversation around what the benefits are that AI can unlock and what the productivity gains are that will help with a lot of the issues that government is grappling with at the moment. The purpose of our submission is to think about and make suggestions around creating the enabling environment for business. We're looking up the value chain, that application layer, recognising already that many businesses are adopting AI in their operations. When we go overseas, though, to Singapore, to China and to other jurisdictions, what we're seeing is that businesses are far more progressed in the deep integration piece and the transformation piece. How do we enable Australian businesses, the Public Service and all the other participants to start evolving and moving up that value chain? That requires workforce capability. How do we train the next generation? What are the skills and support that the government needs to provide to build the next generation of our labour force? We also agree on proportionate and efficient regulation that enables businesses to innovate and progress. We are also highlighting the role of professionals, including accountants and auditors—professional judgement and maintaining standards and trust. There's the ethical piece, the governance piece and the assurance piece. CHAIR: Thank you. I think I touched on the question of adoption, rather than full integration, in terms of AI in our economy. From your business sector perspective, though, what would you see as being a potentially higher-risk adoption of AI? What should we, and particularly policymakers, be aware of in that space? Ms Kasapidis : The risks manifest not by the use of AI. AI is a very broad thing. The applications of it are very different and widespread. So you're, really, looking at what the potential harm is, what the risk factors are and what controls and governance you can implement. You might have deliberate misuse, you might have corporate misconduct, you might have systemic failure—the agentic piece, the autonomous interaction of multiple agents. There is also the question of sovereignty—the systemic concentration and dependence on overseas frontier models and other providers. It really is about what the enabling environment looks like and what your controls look like. AI is a new thing, but we have had innovation in the past. You can look at things like aviation or financial services. What are some of the issues that have been identified, and what are the controls that have been done? It's not all on government, either. Accountants, for example, have their ethics standards. We developed accounting standards to create a framework. And there should be, in our view, an international framework. Australia could take the lead, working with the US and others to identify it. When you look overseas, Singapore, for example, has taken what one would say is a more voluntary and business-friendly approach. They're focused on the application layer. China are about state security and making sure that the use is good. The US is quite fragmented. I think it's really about how we break down the kinds of risks that we see and what the appropriate controls and responses are. Then, where a regulatory solution is required, it's about making sure we rightsize it. Mrs Gorman : I think there's a particular piece around the risk issue. At the core of what FinTech Australia stands for is translating AI into practical benefits for consumers and businesses. We already have really powerful rails in place to help that happen—whether it be payments, whether it be CDR et cetera—and enable the safe information or flow of information to take place as well. There are several particular things that we think could potentially become risks, but they're smaller ones. Jack, I was thinking about the piece where there is potential for bad actors to use the $3,000— Mr Morgan : The automatic compensation mechanism—which has been proposed for the Scams Prevention Framework, for instance. Mrs Gorman : Yes, that's the one. Can you comment further? Mr Morgan : Yes. I should say that this is still very much an early-stage government proposal which went to a Treasury consultation recently in exposure draft form. Among many other aspects of what was being consulted on by Treasury, there was a proposal in the case of scams involving losses of $3,000 or less. Instead of having them go through an AFCA dispute resolution process, there was a proposal that designated sectors be obliged to simply pay out compensation claims within that window. We understand that the rationale underlying that measure is an intention to avoid administration costs being incurred where they're not necessarily economical. But one concern, which we outlined to Treasury in our submission, is that at this point in time we're not satisfied it necessarily has sufficient safeguards to prevent misuse by bad actors who could, among other things, leverage AI. CHAIR: Sure. There are things to be alert to. Ms Kasapidis : I would add that we also already have regulations. We have privacy laws. We have cybersecurity laws. So it's really around evaluating the extent to which the existing laws can adapt to the AI initiatives and innovations and, where there are gaps, asking how you would then amend or build on those laws—similarly with audit and assurance and things like that. CHAIR: I appreciate that. Mr Violi. Mr VIOLI: I'll add an extra question. Mr Morgan, you were talking about that $3,000 scheme. I just want to confirm my understanding. One of the concerns with AI, if it's an automatic refund, is that essentially the scale at which those agents could then put claims in could overwhelm the system and businesses. That's the AI link to the concern with the $3,000 scam. Is that correct? Mr Morgan : That's correct, Mr Violi. Mr VIOLI: Thank you. Mrs Gorman, thank you for using that example of agtech. One of the frustrations I have is very much that this conversation can sometimes conflate frontier AI with more general or foundational models. I would just highlight the fact that you said it's five or six years that you've been using AI. ChatGPT came about in 2023. I think one of the things a lot of people assume is that AI only came about in the last three years—noting, obviously, the technological advances in the last three years. You talked about fintech being highly regulated. Can you shed some light on any conversations you've had, or on ongoing conversations, with the regulators around AI use? How are they engaging with your organisation and your sector around AI at the moment? Mrs Gorman : I'm going to pass this one to Jack, but what I will say is that we're heavily engaged in conversations at all levels. It is incredibly critical for us to be very proactively and positively engaged in these. Again, we advocate for proportionate regulation. We think that fintech is already under the weight of significant regulation, and we are extremely compliant. Jack? Mr Morgan : Thank you, Sarah. I would say that we've had very positive engagements with regulators on a variety of occasions in relation to AI. We sit, for instance, on ASIC's Digital Finance Advisory Panel, where we've had extensive conversations about this topic and had the opportunity to escalate concerns in some areas where the application of laws has given rise to some questions on our part. We also recently organised alongside our partners at the law firm Ashurst Perkins Coie, an international roundtable involving representation from all major relevant federal regulators, where we heard from some international experts in the UK and the US from Ashurst Perkins Coie and had a comprehensive discussion around some of the priority regulatory issues both domestically and internationally. We've been quite happy with our interactions to date. Mr Ord : Can I quickly add on sorry—we also engage regularly with the regulators that are relevant to us, like the Tax Practitioners Board, the Australian Taxation Office, ASIC and others, around how AI is impacting our members and our sector. We work with them to issue guidance for our members, but there are still going to be a lot of issues. We still don't fully understand what would happen in a situation where an AI agent was to do something or give advice which is incorrect. At the moment it is about accountability. Our members are accountable for what the AI they use produces, but it is an active conversation we're still having with all our regulators as well. And it's been positive as well. Mr VIOLI: Thank you, Mr Ord. This is to both organisations. It sounds like—and I just want to confirm—at this point you feel like the balance is right between giving your members enough certainty to engage with and use AI and unlock the benefits while still making sure, and it's been noted a few times, that every legal responsibility that is already there, the Privacy Act being a classic example, is adhered to, whether you use AI or not. Do you feel that balance is right at this stage, or would you want to make any suggestions to this committee about where you think we need to lean in and make some changes to improve the process, to give your businesses certainty and to unlock the opportunities but also to make sure we keep Australians safe? Ms Kasapidis : From CPA Australia's perspective, it's an ongoing journey, so we have a lot of conversations with boards and executives about their directors' responsibilities and their accountabilities, managing the risk. There perhaps is that regulatory uncertainty about what might come out of these inquiries. The concern is, again, we are heavily regulated and very compliant. Overregulating or not leveraging the existing regulatory framework and developing these conversations in a collaborative way is probably the primary concern for us at the moment. It's very positive that the regulators and the government are open to conversation, but we want to enable businesses to implement AI, look at their processes and take advantage of the technology. Mrs Gorman : We believe that we absolutely have the right balance, but there are several minor tweaks et cetera. From our perspective, our focus is on ensuring that the committee understands that we work within a global environment. Australian fintech and financial services in this country is actually sovereign capability itself. It is one that is getting stronger, and maintaining the right and appropriate controls is really critical. But, again, it's coming back to good consumer outcomes. I'll share just one short example from, again, my dad's experience. When we started, lending was very much within a smaller frame of the big four banks et cetera. What we've seen over the last eight or nine years is greater competition extend to challenger banks, non-bank lenders and boutique lenders as well, which results in better outcomes for all consumers, including regional Australians. What we want to do is maintain this balance for FinTech Australia between appropriate regulation and controls regarding AI itself, and we think the balance is there currently. CHAIR: Excellent. Ms Chaney. Ms CHANEY: There'd be opportunities to reduce the cost of advice by using AI tools, but your members would still be bearing the legal liability for what's produced. Are there any cases or products where your members think that the legal liability should be apportioned in a different way, rather than them bearing full responsibility for whatever comes out of the AI tools that they're using? How are your members thinking about that apportionment-of-liability issue? Ms Kasapidis : From the accounting perspective, including auditors, tax agents and financial advisers, they are clearly owning the responsibility for the advice they give. On the legal position, in terms of civil liability for a product that they might use, if it were to make an error at scale or provide incorrect advice, it's a little uncertain. We haven't seen that occur. What we are finding, though, is that they are very cognisant around the use of AI. They are proactive in being transparent with their clients when they are using AI. And ultimately, through their professional judgement and their responsibility, they are building processes and review points to ensure that doesn't occur. In that sense, we are very much around governance. I think one of the biggest questions we're getting from our members is: How do I make sure my advice remains correct? How do I make sure I can have confidence in the advice I'm giving? We do highlight that in our submission. One of the concerns, though, is we have very experienced professionals that have learnt on the job, and the question is around the next generation, who are thrown into an environment where they may not have had the same experiences or skilling. What can replace that that knowledge curve and that experience curve that are critical to ensuring accountability for those things? Similarly, in the audit space, auditors are now looking at how they assure financial information coming out of businesses that is developed and generated by AI or agentic AI. The audit profession is taking a very serious look at how they might provide assurance over those aspects of financial and non-financial reporting as well. Mr Morgan : Of the fintechs I'm aware of who engage in providing financial advice in an AI supported manner, I'm only aware of examples from our membership, where there is a human in the loop, and the models in question being used are bespoke ones which have been developed or at least trained and altered in house, which I think definitely impacts the liability considerations you've raised, Ms Cheney. I would also raise the circumstance of some other fintechs who are, I think, interested in rolling out various AI supported chatbot capabilities in a range of different contexts. I think there's been a reluctance among many of our members to deploy potentially useful tools of that nature for fear that potentially rogue responses attributable to third-party models might result in them inadvertently being captured by existing laws, especially those around the provision of personal financial advice, which can have a range of complications that these companies are obviously keen to avoid. There are definitely companies sitting on the sidelines as a result of the laws in their present form. Mrs Gorman : There are two points I'd like to add to that. One is that it's not our members that we would be concerned about. It would be other companies using AI to deliver financial advice more broadly that don't sit under a credit or financial services licence. That is number one. Secondly, in terms of reducing and making advice more cost effective, you are absolutely correct that there is a role for this. I'm thinking of one of our members specifically, who is using AI currently to help consumers explain their credit scores in accessible language. Now, this is really interesting because they're using AI to learn more about where they sit in the system and access that for their own benefit. That same company is looking at introducing AI supported lending using financial information that is shared with the consumer's permission. Again, it's all around helping households to reduce or improve access to financial information and options that help compare credit and lending options while giving that greater competition and lower cost. Ms CHANEY: Going back to the point that was made previously, fintechs are interested in rolling out chatbots, but there's that reluctance to deploy because of the potential for reliability issues or rogue responses. What do you think it would take to actually drive that uptake? Is it innovation about more trustworthy products developed in Australia? Is it clarity about the attribution of legal liability? Is it the maturation of some of the tools? What do you think will make the difference so that we do see those efficiency gains from making the most of some of these new functionalities? Mr Morgan : I think all of the above. It's also worth noting that there are already offshore models not necessarily governed by Australian law—or the jurisdiction might be debatable, at least—where they are, unhesitatingly and without considering Australia's Corporations Act, just going ahead and providing financial advice off the cuff. We think that also raises some important questions around the need to ensure a level playing field from a regulatory perspective. It's certainly one of the things we brought up with ASIC in the past, and they understand that it's under consideration. Ms CHANEY: But is that just an opportunity for innovation for an Australian governed entity to take those foreign models and make them compliant with Australian laws? Is this an exciting opportunity, or is it something that's going to hold back our ability to innovate here? Mr Morgan : There are opportunities here that are already being explored domestically, but they're being explored with something of a handicap by virtue of how the current laws are arranged. Unsurprisingly, you're operating at a bit of a handicap if, unlike your international competitors, you need to operate in such a way that you keep a human in the loop—even though that's definitely best practice, at least at this stage of the technology's development. But it does have competitive ramifications. Mrs Gorman : I think it's also stable regulations—keeping the playing field stable. What makes fintechs nervous is when regulation shifts rapidly and without consultation. We've seen that with RDTI and CGT et cetera. In terms of reluctance to deploy, that actually feeds this when we're investing heavily. I have already outlined the incredible contribution that the fintech sector has made over less than 10 years. One of the perceptions that we face as a sector sometimes is that it's almost like a one-and-done approach, that we've had the big fintechs rise. What we now see is all of these newer innovators coming through that are using AI, and at the moment we don't know who is going to be the Afterpay or the Up bank of tomorrow. What we want to see is a really stable environment that encourages that innovation to happen here on Australian soil for our capability and sovereign benefit, and that comes back to that reluctance piece. Ms CHANEY: Yes, but I'm sure you can see that a stable regulatory environment is hard in such a rapidly moving space. There is some need to continue to evolve and react to emerging risks. Mrs Gorman : I think that's absolutely true, but we also need to consider, once again, that we operate very much within a global landscape where we are actively competing with high-growth countries in the Asia-Pacific, the UK and other environments where the regulatory landscape remains very positive and where incentives are being promoted around the use of AI to encourage this next generation as we move up that value curve. Mr Ord : Ms Chaney, just taking it back to your initial question around encouraging use—in the business advice and tax advice area, from our members' point of view, it's the maturation of the tools. As the tools become more mature and there are more examples of success, our members will become more willing to adopt that technology. It's also about building the capability of people to use those tools. So it's not, 'Build it and they will come.' You actually need to give people the skills so they can use those tools effectively. In terms of tax advice, we know there are actually quite a few examples in Australia of models that have been developed that are starting to work, and members are now starting to adopt those models because they see the advantages of them. Are there barriers? I think the barriers are around examples of the technology working, emphasising the examples where it works and learning from the examples where it doesn't work. I think we have to also share the good and the bad of AI. Ms CHANEY: Thank you. Do I have time for one more, Chair? CHAIR: Yes, one more. Ms CHANEY: CPA, you talked about AI removing the entry-level work that professionals learn from. I'm really interested in how big that problem is now in accounting, what the industry is doing about that and whether you see any role for government in addressing that problem. Ms Kasapidis : Accounting and finance contain a lot of transactional cognitive processes that can be replaced by AI, and we accept that. Moving into that higher order accountability, strategic, value-add piece comes from experience and knowledge. CPA Australia are looking at our CPA program to see how we can bring experiences and AI familiarity into the learning process. We're also working together with universities to ask, 'How do you teach these young people, who are AI natives, to actually build and create an environment where they can gain those experiences that you previously did on the job?' I think that it is a good microcosm of some of the challenges for broader, white-collar, skilled professional work, but it also provides opportunities because if you can condense those experiences, those learnings, and if you can bring them into a workforce where they are confident with AI and where they understand the governance required, they can build their own agents. They are native in that ecosystem. But I think it's government working together with the universities and the education system and even going into schools. There's a big debate around whether you stop kids at school using AI agents because they're not learning it. So I think, for us, it's around working with those in their early 20s to see how they're responding. We're also using AI in assessment, to do assessments; we're exploring those initiatives. So I think it really is around how we learn from the experiences, how we take that positive approach and how we listen to people who are on the start of their journeys, to hear what they want. We're also hearing a lot about mentorship—a lot of mentoring, a lot more on-the-job learning and a lot more experiential learning. And they're some of the things that AI can actually enable. Ms CHANEY: So I'm hearing there's not much of a government role beyond what happens in universities. Ms Kasapidis : Well, government defines education standards. It really supports academic research. I think the government can definitely facilitate the conversations. There are also those of us who are outside of the education system. There's skilling packages. If you go over to Singapore, they've broken down different jobs into transformation opportunities in the new skills packages that people will require. So I think there's also a retraining and upskilling component where the government could be incredibly valuable. Mr Ord : Government is also a major employer here, and they have a role in their graduate programs. How do they develop simulated learning examples and experiential learning examples? So government can have a role in doing that sort of work and then sharing those experiences with the private sector. Mrs Gorman : There's procurement as well, I would add. Procurement is always a really simple win. But public-private partnerships are absolutely the way forward here, in terms of government's role, so that we're getting the best of learning, because what happens often—and we've personally worked in this field—is that there might be a private company that's investing significantly in AI development. When that's partnered up with a government department, you get the best of both. You're actually getting the mutual learning happening, and that's really, really powerful. Ms CHANEY: Do you mean procurement of training products? Mrs Gorman : Not necessarily training. Ms CHANEY: Then what? Mrs Gorman : I'm just talking of broader services and products beyond accounting and training. Ms CHANEY: How does that address the early-career skills gap? Mrs Gorman : I think it does. Again, I'll just bring a DAS example into this. When we started working in our AI work, we were partnering with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. What we found is that we were investing heavily in our AI capability. They had neither the budget nor the capacity to actually work in some of the areas that we were working in. And so our teams were actually mentoring and training their staff. And we've had a partnership that has now extended over the last seven-plus years that's been really simple but really powerful. Ms CHANEY: Thank you. CHAIR: One final question to Senator Sheldon. Senator SHELDON: Thanks, everybody, for the evidence you've given. Mrs Gorman, it wasn't quite clear—it's whether I've got it clear; you might have been clear—on this question about what's happening with regulation and the rest of the world and how fintechs are responding. You're saying lessons have been learned from there. And I got the impression that you thought that we should be emphasising looking at what's happening elsewhere rather than at what we could be doing here. My concern, if that's correct, is that Australia can also be a leader in saving fintech from itself. I don't undervalue the Australian capacity—the CPA or even people that are members of your association—to come up with suggestions with government. So can you just clarify what you're proposing or suggesting as a way of approaching fintech regulation. Mrs Gorman : I think I'll do it in two parts. My response—and then I'll pass to Jack as well—is, while I'm not sure what you mean by saving fintech from itself, what I do know— Senator SHELDON: Supporting regulatory models that might be Australian made and Australian initiated. Mrs Gorman : Okay. I think where I come from is from looking at a best of breed for what works in Australia—for our particular circumstances and for our environment and policy requirements—but having a lens out to the world to see what is happening elsewhere and how we can learn from that. It's about what is working well; it's not around emphasising one or the other. As someone that spent 10 years living in Asia and is still actively involved in global markets, it's bringing back something we've found works really well somewhere else then learning from that and bringing it here. Similarly, it's being able to take those approaches elsewhere. That's important beyond regulation because it helps us export our AI expertise, as well, in a way that we can, as I said, move up the value chain here as well and not be on the consumption end of global AI models et cetera. Does that go some way to answering your question? Senator SHELDON: It's helpful. Ms Kasapidis : As a general proposition, Australia is very regulation heavy. The cost of compliance, the regulatory burden on our businesses, is a drain on productivity and a drain on innovation. So, as a starting premise, it's important to look overseas to ask, 'Well, what are the most effective and proportionate initiatives and policies that they're developing?' and to take the best of the rest of the world. So that's why I said Singapore is a starting point. We also have to be geopolitically competitive. What we're seeing across other aspects of business and investment decisions is that the Australian regulatory position—the ever-changing rules and the cost of compliance—is making us less attractive. It's making it harder for businesses to grow to attract capital. And that just flows on. We have competitors in the US, Europe and Asia who are moving very quickly ahead. It's really about the signals to the market around the Australian government's mindset on regulation. Our view is that in business, by and large, you want to create an ecosystem and an environment where they are enabled while identifying those high-risk, high-consequence, high-harm cases and isolating them and tailoring regulatory and enforcement responses to those. I think that 'one size fits all' or 'one and done' are not great ways to develop regulation. Mrs Gorman : If I can just add something more to this, it is that it's beyond regulation. It goes to investment and active investment as well. If we take the Singapore example again, recently the Monetary Authority of Singapore invested upwards of $200 million, I think, into the fintech sector. It's specifically saying, 'How can we be a leader in a particular field?' It's not just thinking about how it responds from a regulation point of view; it's saying, 'How do we lead and go up that value chain as well? We know we're not competing domestically; we're competing on a regional and global stage.' Mr Morgan : I'd also add that, beyond regulations and beyond legislation, it's worth noting that there's also a real place here for international standards, which have been used quite successfully in other areas and which government can still leverage through regulations, but in a less prescriptive way. For instance, there is a variety of international standards already around cybersecurity. For instance, in the context of accrediting entities under the consumer data right, rather than reinvent the wheel regarding cybersecurity, the government made a policy decision to leverage existing certifications and simply require that accredited data recipients get certified under a particular standard to a particular level. That's an example of something that we think might be a successful approach in an AI context—for instance, in relation to agentic commerce and some of the issues that throws up around the payments sector and dispute resolution. While those standards don't currently exist, there are lots of international bodies currently in a dialogue around creating them. CHAIR: Excellent. I will bring this session to a close. Thank you so very much for appearing before us today. Anything further that you would like to communicate with the committee or that you've committed to take on notice, please do so through the secretariat in the next two weeks. Proceedings suspended from 12:57 to 13:38 .