does asx really want narrow spreads

ASX claims it wants narrow buy/sell spreads in its market.

It claims ( based on very dubious american research done back in the days where buy/sell spreads were still denominated in johnny depp style pieces of eight ), that short selling improves spreads.

Yeah OK then.

Right now in greek coke, the buy is at 17 and the sell at 35. The other day there were NO sellers at all.

I try to place a sell order ( for stock that I own! ) at 25, ASX knocks the sell order back, "too far from market". Shortly thereafter, somebody else succeeds in placing a sell order at 35. What the !

From this we conclude:

ASX's rules about placing orders are dodgy, and not consistently applied ( so what else is new ? )

and

ASX is not really interested in having decent buy/sell spreads in its market.