This Memorandum:

• Replaces the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of Australia on Coordination of Business Law signed on 22 February 2006.
• Records the following understandings reached in discussions between the Government of New Zealand and the Government of Australia regarding closer economic relations and advancing a trans-Tasman single economic market.

Strengthening Coordination

1. The Governments of New Zealand and Australia ("the Governments", "both Governments") seek to accelerate, deepen and widen the relationship that has developed through the growth of trans-Tasman trade and investment, particularly since the commencement of the Australia New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement in 1983.
2. Both Governments are committed to the objective of a single economic market in which there is no significant discrimination in the Australian and New Zealand markets arising from differences in the policies and regulations of both countries.
3. Both Governments recognise that net trans-Tasman benefits associated with deeper regulatory integration will:
   • improve the environment for doing business on both sides of the Tasman;
   • foster international competitiveness,
   • increase national productivity, and
   • maintain and drive job creation.
4. Both Governments recognise the trend towards increasing international convergence of financial market and business regulation and the need to comply with international standards. Both Governments recognise the benefit of coordination to influence evolving international regulatory standards and regimes.
5. To these ends, both Governments have expressed their commitment to encourage more cooperation between Australian and New Zealand regulators and between the officials responsible for the development of policy in each country to ensure opportunities for deeper business integration and commercial benefits are maximised.
6. Both Governments recognise the importance of maintaining alignment in areas where coordination has already occurred.

Adoption of an outcomes approach

7. This Memorandum recognises the Single Economic Market Outcomes Framework endorsed by Prime Ministers in their Joint Statement of Intent on 20 August 2009. It builds on existing coordination initiatives already underway on business law coordination.

Principles

8. Governments have identified the following principles to guide coordination efforts:
   1. Persons in Australia or New Zealand should not have to engage in the same process or provide the same information twice;
   2. Measures should deliver substantively the same regulatory outcomes in both countries in the most efficient manner;
   3. Regulated occupations should be able to operate seamlessly between each country;
   4. Both Governments should seek to achieve economies of scale and scope in regulatory design and implementation;
   5. Products and services supplied in one jurisdiction should be able to be supplied in the other;
   6. The two countries should seek to strengthen joint capability to influence international policy design; and
   7. Outcomes should seek to optimise net Trans-Tasman benefit.
9. In giving effect to these principles consideration will be given to:
   1. The desirability of ensuring that a firm will only have to comply with one set of rules and will have certainty as to the application of those rules and the regulator (i.e. Australian or New Zealand) with which it needs to deal; and
   2. Whether an issue should be regulated solely through domestic rules or whether a bilateral, or multilateral solution would be more appropriate.

Work Programme

10. Annex I of this Memorandum sets out the Work Programme on the mutually determined Outcomes and other coordination initiatives that Governments are seeking to achieve and that they have determined jointly should be the focus of the business law co-ordination programme.
11. Governments may determine jointly any further outcomes to be added to, varied, or removed from the Work Programme.
12. Both Governments recognise that there may be a range of options for achieving the coordination goals. These need not necessarily involve harmonisation of law or the creation of joint institutions.

Consultation

13. Each Government will keep the other Government informed of proposed reforms in the area of business law and will give the other the opportunity to be involved in the other's reform process at an early stage. Both Governments recognise that early consultation is particularly important where a policy proposal has extra-territorial application that impacts on the other country or would have the potential to result in the removal of any right or benefit that the other country currently enjoys.
14. In addition to the items specified in the Annex I Work Programme, when either Government considers that a difference between their respective business laws or regulatory practices gives rise to an impediment to the development of the trans-Tasman relationship, the two Governments will consult with a view to resolving the impediment, whether or not the area of law is already included in the work programme and regardless of the priority accorded to the matter at the time.

Ministerial Responsibility

15. The Minister of Commerce of New Zealand and the Minister for Financial Services, Corporate Law and Superannuation of the Commonwealth of Australia will have responsibility on behalf of their respective Governments for the implementation of this Memorandum of Understanding.

Institutional Arrangements

16. Both Governments recognise the role of the Trans-Tasman Outcomes Implementation Group formed under the Prime Ministers' Joint Statement of Intent. The Joint Statement of Intent provided that the implementation group will carry the agenda forward.

Report back to Ministers

17. Officials will report six monthly to their respective Ministers responsible for the Memorandum on progress of the work highlighted for action in the Annex I Work Programme.

Review of the Memorandum of Understanding

18. The Governments will review this Memorandum of Understanding five years from the date of its signature, and every five years following that date.

Commencement and implementation

19. This Memorandum of Understanding will come into effect on the date of its signature.

Annex

Work Programme for Coordination of Business Law

Short term: by end 2011

Medium term: by end 2014

Short term

• A single cross-border insolvency proceeding where an
  insolvent entity has interests on both sides of the Tasman.
• An insolvent under administration faces equivalent
  outcomes on both sides of the Tasman and each country
  recognises those outcomes.
• Profit entities are able to use a single set of accounting
  standards and prepare only one set of financial statements.
• Trans-Tasman companies have to prepare only one set of
  financial statements to one set of standards.
• Harmonised or coordinated consumer product labelling
  regimes.
• Harmonised or coordinated approaches to enforcement of
  consumer law.
• Streamline arrangements for mutual recognition of product
  safety bans and standards, based on the Productivity
  Commission's Review of Mutual Recognition Schemes.
• Equivalent approaches to approval and verification of
  weighing and measuring equipment on both sides of the
  Tasman.

Medium term

• Private not-for-profit entities are able to use a single set of
  accounting standards and prepare only one set of financial
  statements.
• Auditors registered in one country can operate in the other
  country.
• Financial reporting standards bodies in Australia and New
  Zealand have functional equivalence.
• Investors and other users of financial products in Australia
  and New Zealand receive comparable disclosures.
• Recognised financial advisers in Australia and New
  Zealand are able to operate across the Tasman without the
  need for further approvals.
• Trans-Tasman financial institutions and businesses face equivalent anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist
  financing (AML/CFT) obligations on both sides of the
  Tasman.
• The New Zealand and Australian corporate Trustee
  regimes are aligned in respect of financial products.
• Firms operating in both markets are faced with the same
  consequences for the same anti-competitive conduct.
• Competition and consumer law regulators in both
  jurisdictions are able to share confidential information for
  enforcement purposes.
• Cross membership between the ACCC and NZ Commerce
  Commission at associate member level.
• There is a standard set of representations of electronic
  financial and business performance data that businesses use when reporting to government in both Australia and
  NZ.
• Trans-Tasman businesses have a single business identifier
  recognised by government agencies on both sides of the
  Tasman.
• Trans-Tasman businesses are required to have to file
  company information only once to meet the requirements of
  both governments.
• A single trans-Tasman register for personal property
  securities.
• There is a single trans-Tasman regulatory framework for
  patent attorneys.
• There is one trans-Tasman trade mark regime.
• There is one application process for patents in both
  jurisdictions.
• Single plant variety right regime.
• Businesses face equivalent consumer credit requirements
  and enforcement regimes on both sides of the Tasman.

• Coordinated approach to the implementation of insurance
  ¹.