Impediments to adopting IFRS in Australia
23 Jun 2003
In its Media Release (PDF 58k) welcoming the adoption of IFRS 1, the Australian Accounting Standards Board has cited two significant impediments to adopting IFRS 1 and other IFRS in Australia.
One is the fact that IFRS are copyrighted by IASB whereas Australian accounting standards must be freely available by law. Secondly, IFRS 1 makes cross-references to IFRS and amended IAS that have not yet been adopted by the AASB. Australian law prohibits cross-referring to regulations that have not yet been enacted. Rather than using IFRS in place of national GAAP, Australia is taking the approach of adopting an Australian equivalent of each individual IAS/IFRS.