President Barack Obama has issued an Executive Order enabling the US Department of Treasury to implement targeted sanctions against foreign individuals or entities whose cyber-enabled activities result in significant threats to the national security foreign policy economic health or financial ...

This week the Planning Minister Richard Wynne introduced a Bill to amend the Victorian planning legislation to make the number of objections a planning application receives a relevant factor when considering whether a proposed use or development may have a significant social effect Will this improve ...

The New South Wales Government has released its new Integrated Mining Policy for consultation It clarifies the development application requirements for major mining projects and aims to streamline the assessment process Partner Bill McCredie and Senior Associates Naomi Bergman and Michael Zissis ...

The Senate has this week referred a broad-ranging inquiry into foreign bribery to the Senate Economic References Committee The terms of the reference provide for a substantial review of Australias foreign bribery laws and enforcement regime with a particular focus on corporate culture issues and ...

The Queensland Parliament has passed legislation introducing a stamp duty concession for transfers of interests in exploration authorities under eligible farm-in agreements ...

Whether or not to more broadly adopt a user-pays model for road infrastructure is a contentious debate within Australia A number of industry participants and bodies have shown leadership in framing and enriching the debate while others have sought to politicise or inflame the core issues Partner ...

This week ASIC flagged a change in its approach to the exercise of its power to make orders to recover expenses and costs associated with investigations Information Sheet 204 indicates that ASIC will be making greater use of this power to seek recovery of its costs from individuals and companies ...

The Ideas Boom has arrived with the Federal Governments National Innovation and Science Agenda Central to the new agenda are a raft of tax and regulatory measures designed to encourage greater investment in startups to help them both get off the ground and to survive the valley of death with greater ...

You might be getting tired of all of the talk about innovation and keen to see some of it actually happen The Governments recent announcements could help but there is a long way to go before the mining boom becomes the ideas boom ...

In December 2015 the Federal Government released an interim report of its review into the management of Australias offshore petroleum resources The review suggests that while the current regime is fundamentally sound there is still a need for action to be taken across the offshore petroleum ...