CA ANZ and CPA Australia have lodged a joint submission to the Treasury Bill proposing amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 to require public companies to include a new ‘consolidated entity statement’, along with a ‘true and correct’ declaration from the directors/officers, in their financial reports. 

Our submission highlights that the proposed disclosures may duplicate information that is already required by accounting standards to be in the financial statements. We also suggest that the materiality principle be considered, as the current proposals would require a comprehensive list of all entities included in the consolidated financial statements.

We recommend that Treasury works with the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) to develop a practical and informative reporting requirement that achieves the stated policy objectives, without imposing additional compliance burden for minimal benefit. A potential outcome from such joint effort could include incorporating suitably modified disclosure requirements within Australian Accounting Standards.