Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate. The reforms in this bill will aid the development of a deep and liquid retail corporate bond market in Australia to provide benefits to business and investors. The strong retail corporate bond market gives businesses greater flexibility in where they source their funding and creates greater opportunities for investors to diversify their risk and access a new source of fixed income. Because of the reforms in this bill, bond issuers will be able to issue bonds with less red tape. The bill is another step along the path on the government's commitment to reduce regulatory burdens on business and reduce unnecessary costs.

The measures in this bill require companies to offer simple corporate bonds through an offer specific prospectus provided they have lodged a base prospectus with ASIC for the purpose of making an offer under the new two-part simple corporate bond prospectus regime. The new disclosure regime will reduce costs for bond issuers as it will enable the bond issuer to incorporate or refer to information already disclosed by the bond issuer as part of the disclosure material. Another part of the significant reduction in disclosure burden is the prospectus documents will also be able to be used for subsequent tranches of bond issues where the information remains current.

The bill also removes the deemed civil liability that applies to company directors when offering corporate bonds and provides clarification around the reasonable steps required to satisfy the due diligence requirements in respect of directors' criminal liability. This is being done whilst still maintaining appropriate standards of consumer protection are maintained. The bill also contains amendments that will put in place a framework in the Corporations Act to enable parallel trading of simple corporate bonds in the wholesale and retail markets, and I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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