Asia's financial centres need to harmonise their regulatory regimes or risk having capital flow away to the new exchange alliances in Europe and the United States, says Australia's Minister for Financial Services and Regulation.
This is a striking change of tune for Joe Hockey, who at this time last year was touring the world's financial centres touting Sydney - with its cheaper real-estate and technology, and allegedly higher-quality workforce - as the obvious best choice as Asia's financial hub.
Now, he talks of partnership rather than regional hegemony.
'Partnership politics and partnership business is the way of the future,' he said in Hong Kong last week. 'My overriding concern is that with the aggregation of markets in Europe and America, there will be a flight of capital out of the Asian region to Europe and America, and that future investment decisions [concerning] the region will be made in New York and London instead of in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney.'
With the same zeal he devoted to last year's campaign to win premier-hub status for Sydney, Mr Hockey is now button-holing Hong Kong's top financial officials with proposals to build a consistent regulatory regime across both jurisdictions.
He met Donald Tsang Yam-kuen in Sydney on Tuesday, and the financial secretary issued a statement afterwards saying he supported greater co-operation between Hong Kong and Australian regulators.
