AICD supplementary submission into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026

On 11 June 2026, the AICD made a supplementary submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics (the Committee) Inquiry into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026 (the Bill).

The submission provided the Committee with legal advice prepared by leading corporate law expert, Professor Pamela Hanrahan of Johnson Winter Slattery. The AICD commissioned Professor Hanrahan to prepare the advice on the how the Bill will work regarding the provision, publication and restriction of officer information.

The key points in our submission were:

• The advice provides legal support for the AICD’s fundamental concern that the Bill as drafted may expose millions of directors to unacceptable safety and privacy risks.
• The AICD’s starting point is that officer personal information – and in particular residential address information – should not be accessible to the public. It is clear from the advice that this outcome is not achieved by the Bill, which does not contemplate a presumption of privacy or privacy by design for officers. Instead, the Bill provides the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) with the discretion to disclose sensitive personal information on the registries with limited controls.