THE LATEST COOPERATIVE AND MUTUAL NEWS, AUSTRALIA-WIDE

BCCM CEO Melina Morrison was quoted in The Australian in an article discussing the government pushing ahead with laws aimed at freeing up the mutual banking sector from unnecessary regulations.

Australian ICMIF member, the BCCM warmly welcomed the publication of draft legislation that will begin the process of modernising the Federal law for mutual businesses in Australia.

Australia’s Business Council for Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) has welcomed proposals to give new legal recognition to the co-op model.

‘And compounding the problems, the decline of mutuals and co-operatives — which may have had too few incentives to operate efficiently, but equally had few incentives to enrich themselves at their members’ expense — deprives those who have little ability to look after themselves of what was once a reasonably safe and simple choice, as does the shrinking role of charitable providers in aged care.’

The first official governance principles for cooperatives and mutuals in Australia have been released, hoping to promote effective member-focused governance in the sector.

The Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals – the sector body for Australian co-ops – has organised a study visit to the UK.

The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) has published a series of co-operative and mutual enterprise FAQs on its website.

The Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals has released the first edition of its governance principles for co-ops and mutuals.

If you’re starting from scratch Amos recommends reaching out to the Business Council for co-ops and looking into the rules governing co-ops in Australia.

The BCCM has developed two new applications to its reg-tech constitution builder, so would-be co-ops can create correct legal governance structures for the three financial models used by co-ops – distributing, non-distributing, and non-distributing with shares.

Australia’s Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) has joined an international initiative to develop open-source technology for creating worker-owned gig economy platforms.

Melina Morrison, has spoken up in defence of the humble Mutual – asking: “Would we be in this position, had the respective institutions never demutualised? While we will never know … it seems unlikely.”