Law Council of Australia

Resources

Registry stabilisation and uplift—draft legislation consultation

Submission Date: 11 February 2026

The Law Council of Australia provided comments on the Exposure Draft of Schedules 1 and 2 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2025 released on 12 December 2025.

Australia’s business registers need urgent improvement, and we are pleased that Treasury is progressing reform in this area. In particular, it is important that director identification numbers (DINs) are linked to the registers maintained under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (CATSI Act) as soon as practicable.

The proposed reforms to allow people to provide an alternative address that is not their usual residential address in documents that can be searched by the public is particularly important for security and safety reasons (including in situations of family violence). Giving the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) a power to correct the registers when needed, so long as it is clearly confined, is also welcome. The Law Council would encourage Treasury to explore whether any of the proposed amendments can be brought forward from 2027.

The Law Council has considered how the proposed amendments will apply to the registers of companies, registered Australian bodies, and registered foreign companies. The Law Council also identifies some related issues for charities registered under the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission Act 2012 (Cth) (ACNC Act). While the Law Council notes that the Explanatory Materials indicate that ACNC Act and CATSI Act issues are currently out of scope, the Law Council thinks it is important they are addressed as part of this reform.

Many of the Law Council's comments in the body of the submission are technical. The broader, overarching observations are:

  1. The deregistration power in draft subsection 601AB(2A) is too broad.
  2. If ASIC decides to change a company’s registered office to a director’s address, it should be to their alternative address if they have nominated one.
  3. ASIC should not have a discretion to disclose or publish information contained in a document listed in paragraph 1274(1)(a). This information should only be disclosed when permitted by current law.
  4. Consistent with government policy on electronic communication, companies and their officers should be able to request that communications and notices from ASIC are sent by post, not email (even if email is made the opt-out setting).
  5. There should be a procedure for a person to apply to ASIC to have personal information redacted from historic documents that are available to the public under section 1274.
  6. To resolve the significant practical difficulties for charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), the Bill should amend the law so that:
    1. the ASIC register contains no detail about charitable companies but only a link referring the public to the ACNC register;
    2. it is made clear on the ASIC register that a charitable company or charitable registrable Australian body is not required to notify ASIC of its directors’ DINs; and
    3. ASIC must exercise its power (under the draft legislation) to redact outdated information on the ASIC register for registered charities
  7. Additionally, for charities, subsection 129(2) of the Corporations Act should be amended to include a reference to the ACNC register, and section 269-50 of Schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth) should be amended to reflect the fact that ASIC does not hold current information about directors of charitable companies.
  8. Additional leeway should be afforded to foreign companies in order to reflect the practical difficulties created by ASIC’s manual processes.
  9. Personal information about members or beneficial owners of companies who are natural persons should not be publicly available on the registers.

The Law Council expands on these comments in the submission.

Related Documents

Last Updated on 11/02/2026

Share

Tags

Most recent items


Trending Items