GST Point-in-Time Service Updates

The GST Point-in-Time Service has been updated to include the National Emergency Declaration (Consequential Amendments) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act 129 of 2020), the Corporations Amendment (Corporate Insolvency Reforms) Act 2020 (Cth) (Act 130 of 2020), the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Consumer Law—Country of Origin Representations) Regulations 2020 (Cth), and the Competition and Consumer Amendment (AER Functions) Regulations 2020 (Cth).

Act 129 of 2020

The National Emergency Declaration (Consequential Amendments) Act 2020 (the Act) operates in conjunction with the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020 to implement Recommendation 5.1 of the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (RCNNDA) by establishing a legislative framework for declaring national emergencies.

Act 130 of 2020

An Act to implement reforms intended to reduce the costs of external administration for small businesses and the compliance burden for insolvency practitioners, helping more businesses remain viable and improving the returns to creditors and employees when the business is unviable.

Schedule 1 to the Act creates a debt restructuring process for eligible small companies.

Schedule 2 to the Act provides temporary relief for eligible companies seeking to enter the formal debt restructuring process created in Schedule 1.

Schedule 3 to the Act creates a simplified liquidation process for a creditors’ voluntary winding up of an insolvent company and amends the Insolvency Practice Schedule to refine the registration requirements for a liquidator.

Schedule 4 to the Act expands the situations where documents relating to the external administration of a company may be given electronically. It also allows documents relating to the external administration of a company to be signed electronically.

The Act amends Acts and Regulations that contain powers that are used by the Commonwealth when responding to, or supporting the recovery from, emergencies to enable the use of alternative or simplified statutory tests to streamline the exercise of those powers where a national emergency has been declared.

Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Consumer Law—Country of Origin Representations) Regulations 2020

The purpose of the Regulations is to amend the Competition and Consumer Regulations 2010 by repealing the existing regulation 92AA and substituting a new regulation 92AA to prescribe a process that complementary medicines have undergone in Australia, authorised by a licence, to be substantially transformed for the purposes of paragraph 255(2)(c) of the Australian Consumer Law.

Competition and Consumer Amendment (AER Functions) Regulations 2020

These regulations amend the Competition and Consumer Regulations 2010 to confer additional functions on the Australian Energy Regulator as a designated data holder under the Consumer Data Rights regime.    

These amendments have been updated in the Point-in-Time GST Service current to 16 December 2020. (NB: subscription required).

If you are not already a subscriber to this or other Point-in-Time Services then please contact us to find out more or to take a free trial.