CA ANZ has lodged a submission to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee on the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill. It is for small regulatory fixes to 24 pieces of legislation administered by MBIE. We support the policy objective of the Bill to improve regulatory systems by ensuring that they are effective and efficient and that they accord with best regulatory practice. We have mainly focused our feedback on the proposed amendments relating to financial reporting and auditing.

We comment on:

• Part 4 – Charitable Trusts Act 1957
• Part 9 – Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013
• Part 10 – Financial Reporting Act 2013

We highlight that the proposed addition to the meaning of “large” in section 45 of the Financial Reporting Act has the potential of extending the definition and bringing more entities into scope that may not have been intended within the extant definition.

We recommend that the proposed addition to the meaning of “specified not-for-profit entity” in section 46 of the Financial Reporting Act refers to the concept of “control”, consistent with the Charities Act 2005, instead of using the term “subsidiaries”.

As it can be difficult to find time on the parliamentary calendar for ‘repairs and maintenance’ of existing legislation, we have also taken this opportunity to identify some further improvements needed to the statutes being amended by the Bill and have put them forward for consideration.