It explains Australia's planned 'big bang' approach to convergence of Australian GAAP and IFRS. The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) intends to issue 35 new or revised AASB Standards by 31 March 2004. All will be applicable from 1 January 2005. The AASB's revised standards will be equivalent to IFRS "with some possible minor amendments". In July 2002, the Financial Reporting Council (the Australian government agency that oversees the AASB) issued a Bulletin (PDF 14k) announcing its support for adoption by Australia of International Financial Reporting Standards by 1 January 2005. The FRC said that "after that date, audit reports will refer to companies' compliance with IASB standards". The new convergence approach would retain AASB standards rather than replace them with IFRS. We have modified our table on Country Use of IFRS accordingly.