Speech: Modern Law Fit for the Future – The Role and Value of Independent Law Reform Agencies
Speech by ALRC President, the Hon Justice Mordy Bromberg to the Commonwealth Law Conference, Malta 2025 Wednesday, 9 April 2025 The Australian Law Reform Commission is the Australian government’s independent research and advisory agency on law reform. We conduct inquiries, provide reports and make recommendations for the reform of Australian laws. Our legislative charter is …
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Read moreListen: 2024 Higinbotham Lecture
The ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program has published an audio recording of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) President, the Hon Justice Mordecai Bromberg, giving the 2024 Higinbotham Lecture at RMIT University in October 2024. The annual Higinbotham Lecture is one of RMIT’s most prestigious events and celebrates the legacy of Victorian politician and …
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Read moreFAQs: The Legislative Data Framework
Over the past few years, the ALRC used pioneering data collection and analysis to scrutinise corporations and financial services legislation. Using legislative data, the ALRC was able to show just how complex corporations and financial services legislation is. The ALRC also used that data when developing reforms. This article aims to answer some of the …
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Read moreFAQs: The FSL Schedule
This article answers some of the (hypothetically) frequently asked questions about the Financial Services Law Schedule (the ‘FSL Schedule’) recommended by the ALRC. Implementing two of the ALRC’s recommendations would produce the FSL Schedule: creating the Financial Services Law by restructuring and reframing the financial services provisions within Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act 2001 …
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Read moreThe ALRC’s Roadmap to Implementation
Throughout the Corporations and Financial Services Legislation Inquiry, stakeholders emphasised the importance of staging the implementation of reforms and managing transition costs. This article explains the ALRC’s suggested approach for implementing the reformed legislative framework for financial services. This is the fourth in a series of short pieces following the release of the ALRC’s Final …
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Read moreExcavating Corporations and Financial Services Legislation
The ALRC used a number of analogies during the Corporations and Financial Services Legislation Inquiry to help explain our discoveries and conceptualise our insights about legislative complexity. We likened the law to a house, a cupboard, Russian dolls, and even outer space. Looking back, it often felt like we were on an archaeological dig, excavating layers of complexity …
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Read moreThe Reformed Legislative Framework: A how-to guide
The existing legislative framework for financial services is unnecessarily complex and difficult to use. So how should it be improved? This article briefly explores the reformed legislative framework for financial services legislation recommended by the ALRC in the Final Report of the Corporations and Financial Services Legislation Inquiry. It also illustrates the benefits of the …
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Read moreThe FSL Journey
Last week, the Final Report of the ALRC’s Corporations and Financial Services Inquiry was published. The Final Report laid out the results of three years’ work examining why the law is so complex and setting out how it should be reformed. In this article, we describe the ALRC’s journey from the Inquiry’s genesis through to …
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Read moreThe regulatory challenges of evolving technology and financial services law
Author: Dr Vannessa Ho As the ALRC’s Financial Services Legislation Inquiry reaches its conclusion, it pays to look to the future. In an ever-evolving technological landscape, what will be the next challenge for financial services law? This article explores some recent innovations and the regulatory challenges they (and similar future developments) pose in the context …
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Read moreShould we use emojis in legislative drafting?
Author: Jane Hall Emojis are ubiquitous in modern communication. In 2021, Unicode reported that 92% of the world’s online population use emojis. Emojipedia estimates that over 900 million emojis are sent each day without text on Facebook Messenger, and that by mid-2015, half of all comments on Instagram included an emoji. Given how frequently we …
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