Page 554 - Week 02 - Thursday, 16 February 2017
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I am pleased to introduce the Co-operatives National Law (ACT) Bill 2017. The bill that is being presented today will replace the Cooperatives Act 2002 with a uniform national law which now applies in nearly all Australian jurisdictions.
By way of background, cooperatives are businesses only run for the benefit of their members. They provide an important part of our local, Australian and world economies and communities. While we have a small cooperative sector in the ACT, our cooperatives provide important services to our community, including affordable healthcare services.
Organisations or people wishing to incorporate can choose the cooperative structure as an alternative to being a company or an incorporated association. The cooperative model is flexible and allows the business to be for profit or not for profit. About three-quarters of cooperatives are established as not for profit, in that they have rules that prevent them from distributing any surplus to their members.
The development of the uniform cooperatives national law has been led by New South Wales. The cooperatives national law is set out as an appendix to the New South Wales Co-operatives (Adoption of National Law) Act 2012. New South Wales was the first jurisdiction to replace the scheme with the uniform cooperatives national law.
The ACT’s Cooperatives Act 2002 and Cooperatives Regulation 2003 are based on the repealed New South Wales cooperatives act and regulation. The ACT agreed to progress this reform under the Australian uniform cooperatives laws agreement. To date, all states and territories other than Queensland have passed legislation that either adopts the cooperatives national law or achieves consistency with the cooperatives national law.
The bill provides that the cooperatives national law, as in force from time to time and as set out in the appendix to the New South Wales act, applies as a territory law as modified by schedule 1 of the bill. If the New South Wales parliament passes a law amending the cooperatives national law, the amending law must be presented to the Legislative Assembly within six sitting days and may be disallowed.
The amendments will remove red tape for our local cooperatives and “foreign cooperatives”, which are called participating cooperatives under the cooperatives national law, who wish to carry on business in the ACT. It will also simplify reporting and financial arrangements for small cooperatives by reducing burdensome reporting requirements.
The bill will allow for mutual recognition of cooperatives operating in participating jurisdictions without requiring them to register. Under the arrangements that existed before the adoption of the cooperatives national law, a “foreign cooperative” was required to register in each state or territory where it wished to carry on business. This not only represented unnecessary red tape but also was a cost imposition as an application attracted a filing fee in each state and territory where the cooperative wished to register. This bill will bring the ACT into line with most other jurisdictions by removing this unnecessary red tape and cost for cooperatives who wish to carry on business in the territory.
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