On 26 November, the Attorney-General, Yvette D'Ath, introduced the Associations Incorporation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 (Bill) to the Queensland parliament.

The Bill’s purpose is to clarify how the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 (Act) operates and to update the Act by:

• improving incorporated associations’ internal governance, and
• reducing the regulatory burden for incorporated associations and charitable entities

The Explanatory Notes provide more information:

1. Significantly, the Bill provides that a regulation may exempt classes of association from the requirement to provide annual financial reports to the chief executive. This power will allow the government to exempt associations that are registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC) from Queensland Government reporting requirements. This means these associations will not have to submit annual financial reports to both a Commonwealth and state regulator. The Bill proposes a similar exemption power for classes of entities that are required to report under the Collections Act 1966 (Collections Act).
2. The Bill includes amendments that will allow incorporated associations to use communications technology more readily in meetings and allow associations to voluntarily cancel their incorporation in certain circumstances.
3. The Bill also clarifies the role of management committees by introducing penalties for failure to observe basic governance principles, and improves the internal governance of associations by providing that associations must follow a grievance procedure. Associations may develop their own grievance procedure in their rules (subject to principles outlined in the Bill). However, if they don’t want to develop their own procedure, the model rule grievance procedure will apply. This will reduce the implementation burden for associations.

Ms D'Ath, in her Explanatory Speech, said ‘To ensure the Office of Fair Trading will still be able to maintain an appropriate level of risk based oversight of exempt ACNC registered entities if required, the bill provides the chief executive with the ability to enter into an information-sharing arrangement with the ACNC. The chief executive will also have the power to direct an exempt entity to provide financial statements and to have those statements audited, verified or examined’.

The Bill has been referred to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee, but due dates for submissions (and public hearings) have not yet been published.