EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1984 No. 20
Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations (Amendment)
(Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations)
The Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations (Amendment) make provision for requests under section 170 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 (the Principal Act) to the Registrar to conduct an election for an office in an organization or a branch of an organization.
Regulation 1 provides a citation of the Principal Regulations.
Regulation 2 amends regulation 139 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations (the Principal Regulations) by inserting new sub-regulation 139(3A).
Sub-regulation 139(3A) provides that where members of an organization or branch request the Registrar to conduct an election the request shall set out the names, addresses and signatures of the members and be accompanied by a statutory declaration by a person in whose presence the request was signed. The person making the statutory declaration is required to declare that the person signed the request in his presence and that the person is known to him by the name set out in the declaration and to declare, to the best of his knowledge and belief, that the person resides at the address shown and is a member of the organization.
To overcome possible ambiguity with the definition of “Registrar” in the Principal Regulations, regulations 2 and 3 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations (Amendment) also amended, respectively, regulations 139 and 140 of the Principal Regulations by omitting the reference therein to “Industrial Registrar” and substituting the word “Registrar”.
The Conciliation and Arbitration Regulations (Amendment) also amended regulation 153 of the Principal Regulations.
Section 158AE of the Principal Act provides for the appointment of persons to audit the accounts of organizations. Sub-section 158AE(1A) provides that:
“(1A) An auditor … shall be a competent person or a firm at least one of whose members is a competent person”.
Sub-section 158AE(3) provides that:
“(3) The Regulations may provide that a person is not a competent person for the purposes of sub-section (1A) in relation to all or any organizations unless he is included in a prescribed class of persons.”
Before its amendment by regulation 4 regulation 153 required that, where the organization had an annual income exceeding $10,000, “a competent person” had to be a registered public accountant or a registered or licensed auditor. Where the organization had an income of less than $10,000, “a competent person” had to have a certificate issued by the Registrar stating that the person had had experience in the keeping or auditing of accounts. Amended regulation 153 provides that persons competent to audit the accounts of an organization having an annual income in excess of $10,000 are competent to audit the accounts of organizations having an annual income of less than $10,000.