EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1983 No 108
ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SECURITIES INDUSTRY REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Section 150 of the Securities Industry Act 1980 (“the Act”) provides in sub-section (1) that the Governor-General may make regulations not inconsistent with the Act prescribing all matters that are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act. Sub-section 150(5) of the Act provides that the power of the Governor-General to make regulations shall be exercised only in accordance with advice that is consistent with resolutions of the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities (“the Council”). The Council was established under the agreement between the Commonwealth and the States, executed on 22 December 1978, that provides the framework for a co-operative Commonwealth-State scheme for a uniform system of law and administration in relation to company law and the regulation of the securities industry in the six States and the Australian Capital Territory.
Under sub-clause 45(1) of the agreement, the Council may consider a proposal for the amendment of regulations made under the Commonwealth Acts enacted for the purposes of the co-operative scheme. Should the Council approve any draft amending regulation which gives effect to such a proposal, the Commonwealth is then required, under sub-clause 45(2) of the agreement, to submit the draft regulation to the Federal Executive Council for making by the Governor-General.
The accompanying regulation is identical in form and substance to a draft regulation approved by the Council. Its purpose is to replace Form 1 in Schedule 1 to the Securities Industry Regulations with a new form.
Where the National Companies and Securities Commission (“the Commission”), in pursuance of paragraph 12(3A)(f) and (g) of the Act, requires a person to disclose information, it must, under sub-section 12(3D), give the person, at the time the requirement is made, a notice in the prescribed form.
The existing form prescribed in the Regulations for issue in accordance with sub-section 12(3D) of the Act quotes provisions in sub-section 12(3C) of the Act which, by section 10 of the Companies and Securities Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 1981, has been replaced by new sub-sections 12(3C) and (3CA). These amended provisions of the Act provide for disclosure to the Commission of information that might tend to incriminate the person providing that information and also provide for the admissibility or non-admissibility of such evidence in criminal proceedings, depending on whether the person claims, before making a statement, that the statement might tend to incriminate him.
As a consequence of amendments of the Act, it is proposed that a new Form 1 incorporating the new sub-sections 12(3C) and (3CA) should be prescribed to replace the existing Form 1.