Page 3200 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 11 September 1991
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By simplifying the process, this Bill will encourage the incorporation of associations that should be incorporated bodies, by their very nature and the nature of the tasks and objectives they have, not only for the greater efficiency of that association, but also for the protection of the members of the association, and, I suppose, for the territorial legislature and the law in the ACT to more properly administer and assist those associations.
Accordingly, we have no problems with this Bill, which is another one of the Bills that were formulated during the period of the Alliance Government. The Liberal Party agrees to it in principle.
MR COLLAERY (3.22): I am pleased to speak on this Bill. The long process of amending the 1953 legislation is now complete. It is of considerable interest to note that, when the Alliance Government tabled the draft Associations Incorporation Bill, which was almost exactly the same as the Bill before us, there was considerable interest in it nationally as one of the latest association Bills off the blocks. The Australian Accounting Research Foundation looked at the then Associations Incorporation Bill 1990 that the Alliance Government had developed - a precursor to this which had its origins way back prior to self-government - and compared it with the associations incorporation Acts of the various States and the Northern Territory.
An interesting legislative comparison was done by the foundation, which shows that in key areas the proposed ACT Bill shines above all other legislation in this country. I want to say to the tag-along Labor Government here, which wants to play safe and tag onto every initiative and not take their own, that this is something they should feel proud about. It is an incredible performance by our legislative draftspeople and the people in the Government Law Office giving the instructions and conducting the research.
The comparison shows that on a number of issues, particularly in the types of requirements the accounting research body saw as crucial, we covered just about every field: For example, the corporations law accounting records - covered by the ACT; the duty to keep accounting records - covered by the ACT; retention of accounting records for seven years - covered by the ACT; and, similarly, presentation of financial statements at the annual general meeting, including profit and loss statement and balance sheet; accounts to present true and fair picture and not be misleading; accounts to cover statements of mortgages charged as securities; financial statements for trusts; responsibility for accounts of directors of companies; committee of management, and so forth. It is a good comparison and we stand up pretty well. There are a couple of gaps, and I propose to cover them in some amendments during the detail stage.
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