Yup.. security-theatre, empire-building, job-security, tissue-thin justification, political-arse-covering, 'show me your papers' totalitarianism is what the ASIC/AVID 'security' checks are really all about.
Yep the best bit about the ASIC is that the information isn't even held by the government they actually farm it out to a third party to administer and they have all the personal information on you.
If the ASIC card is so important why isn't it a valid form of ID? When you apply for a passport, government/army/civil service identity cards etc are valid forms of ID, yet an ASIC cannot be used to validate your ID. Therefore what the hell is it good for if the government won't even accept it as a appoved form of identification?