Australia Says New Accounting Standards Body Will Be Independent

Australia’s proposed new accounting, audit, and assurance standards body would be independent but still involve practitioners, Treasury officials told lawmakers.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino introduced legislation to Parliament Feb. 12 that would merge three rule-writing entities—the Australian Accounting Standards Board, the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board, and the Financial Reporting Council—into a single body. The change was recommended by a parliamentary inquiry into consulting ethics in 2024 in the wake of a scandal in which partners at PwC leaked confidential government tax policy plans to clients.

The merged entity—called External Reporting Australia—would operate separately from the Department of Treasury to ...