PART 1: THE AUSTRALIAN ACCOUNTING ENVIRONMENT Chapter 1 An overview of the Australian external reporting environment Review questions 1.1 Refer to pages 6 to 25 of the text. The main bodies responsible for regulating accounting disclosure in Australia are: (i) Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Briefly, ASIC is responsible for administering corporations legislation within Australia (which includes various reporting requirements). According to its own website, the role of the ASIC is to enforce and regulate company and financial services laws to protect consumers, investors and creditors. (ii) Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) The role of the AASB is to develop a conceptual framework. It is also responsible for ‘making’ accounting standards that have the force of law under the corporations legislation, as well as formulating accounting standards that are to be used by reporting entities that are not governed by corporations legislation, inclusive of entities operating in the not-for-profit sector and public sector entities. The AASB is also responsible for Interpretations Advisory Panels, user focus groups and project advisory panels. As was indicated in this chapter, however, a great deal of the responsibility for developing accounting standards to be released by the AASB is in the hands of the IASB, as is the development of the conceptual framework. It is to be anticipated that only minor changes would be made to standards being released by the IASB before they are subsequently released within Australia as AASB standards (for example, the changes might involve adding more explanatory material to the Australian standard, or to add additional requirements in relation to not-for-profit or public sector entities). The AASB reports to the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Once an AASB-released accounting standard is in place, corporate directors are required to ensure that the company’s financial statements comply with the requirements of the standard (where applicable). (iii) Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) The ASX provides numerous disclosure requirem