Submission: Proposed Safe Harbour changes

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering Better Financial Outcomes and Other Measures) Bill 2024 (Bill), which includes amendments to the Safe Harbour provisions in s 588GA aimed at simplifying the legislation and making it more readable, was referred to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry.

ARITA made a submission to the inquiry on 6 June 2024 strongly endorsing the immediate implementation of the recommendations of the Review of the Insolvent Trading Safe Harbour report dated 23 November 2021, including the proposed amendments in the Bill implementing recommendations 3, 6, 8 and 9 made by the Safe Harbour Review.

We also took the opportunity to note that the Joint Parliamentary Committee made a wide range of recommendations relating to Australia’s insolvency system in its report tabled eleven months earlier and that it is very disappointing that work on a long-term comprehensive review has not commenced nor is there any sight of legislation dealing with uncontroversial amendments dealing with trusts, small business restructuring and simplified liquidations, despite ARITA having provided detailed drafting suggestions to the Assistant Treasurer, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Minister for Small Business many months ago. We stressed that these more immediate reforms would greatly assist small businesses experiencing financial difficulties in the current economic environment.

Read ARITA's Submission