Do we have to do mandatory climate reporting?

You must prepare a sustainability report if you already lodge a financial report under Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act and you also meet one of the size, NGER or funds-under-management tests in section 292A. Both gates have to be passed: with no Chapter 2M obligation, section 292A never engages however large you are. Which of the three reporting groups you fall into decides which financial year is your first.

What is the modified liability period and what does it protect?

For financial years commencing between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2027, statements in your sustainability report about Scope 3 emissions, scenario analysis and transition plans can only be actioned by ASIC or in criminal proceedings. Broader forward-looking climate statements had the same protection only for financial years commencing during 2025. Both windows are closed-ended and neither renews.

Glossary›Regulation, capture and thresholds / Regulation, capture and timing›Treasury Laws Amendment Act 2024

Glossary term

Cluster B · B9

Tier 2

Treasury Laws Amendment Act 2024

Definition

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Act 2024 is the Commonwealth legislation that created Australia’s mandatory climate reporting regime. Schedule 4 inserted sustainability reporting into Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act, setting the capture thresholds, the group phasing, the assurance requirement, the directors’ declaration and the time-limited liability settings.

Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Act 2024 (Cth) No. 75 of 2024

· Schedule 4, Royal Assent 17 September 2024 ·

In force

On this page

In practice
What the assurer does with it
Commonly confused with
Timing and relief
Sources
Related terms
Related questions

Cluster

B · Regulation, capture and thresholds / Regulation, capture and timing, 26 terms

In practice

The Act is rarely the document anyone reads, and it is worth knowing what it did because it explains why the regime behaves the way it does.

It is an amending Act. It has no ongoing life of its own. What it did was write new sections into the Corporations Act, and it is those sections a captured entity now complies with. When an adviser cites section 292A, section 296A, section 296D, section 301A or section 1707D, every one of those provisions arrived through Schedule 4 of this Act.

Three design choices in Schedule 4 determine the shape of the obligation.

It was inserted into Chapter 2M, not built as standalone environmental law. That single decision produced the two-step capture test. An entity is captured only if it already has a Chapter 2M annual financial reporting obligation and meets a section 292A threshold. It also means the regime inherited Chapter 2M’s deadlines, its directors’ liability framework and its enforcement machinery rather than inventing new ones.

It phased capture by size rather than by sector. Three groups, three start dates, and no industry carve-outs. A privately held manufacturer and a listed bank of the same size sit in the same group.

It made assurance statutory from year one, and made the liability settings temporary. Section 301A requires the sustainability report to be assured. Section 1707D restricts who may sue over certain statements, but only for defined windows, all of which close by the end of 2027.

The Act also carried a set of amendments unrelated to climate, covering financial market infrastructure. That is why the title mentions neither climate nor sustainability, and why searching for the Act by subject matter usually fails.

What the assurer does with it

Nothing directly. The assurance provider works from ASSA 5000 and ASSA 5010, and from the Corporations Act as amended, not from the amending Act. Its relevance in an engagement is historical: where a question turns on what a provision was intended to achieve, the explanatory memorandum to this Act is the first place both sides look.

Commonly confused with

The Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards. The Act creates the obligation to report; AASB S2 sets what the report contains. An entity complies with the Corporations Act by preparing a report, and complies with AASB S2 by getting its contents right. Also confused with the Treasury policy position statement of January 2024, which preceded the Act and is not law.

Timing and relief

The Act itself is fully commenced. The time-limited elements it created are the liability protections in section 1707D and the modified directors’ declaration, both of which have their own entries and both of which expire for financial years commencing on or after 1 January 2028.