COSBOA has noted the introduction of several pieces of legislation introduced into the Australian Parliament yesterday to modernize business registers.
There are currently 32 business registers administered by the ABR (Australian Business Register) and ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission) with business owners often required to provide the same information to several registers. The new legislation proposes to merge the registers into one system so that businesses can manage their data and interact with the Government in one place.
COSBOA CEO Peter Strong said “it may not be an exciting topic, or one that gets much attention from the media, but these changes are very appreciated as they reduce the red tape burden for small and family businesses”.
“Small business operators already have a lot of red tape to navigate — from OH&S to tax to the complicated award system and superannuation — and they don’t have teams of experts to manage this for them like big businesses do. Any legislation that removes red tape to make compliance easier and simpler is a welcome change”.
Mr Strong added “COSBOA has been involved with the Modernising Business Registers Program Business Advisory Group and we met with the Deregulation Taskforce in early November where we discussed the problems associated with multiple business registers. We are therefore pleased that the new legislation addresses this issue”.