The meeting was partly a joint meeting with the New Zealand Financial Reporting Standards Board (FRSB). The Boards are moving closer to harmonising financial reporting standards between the two countries, whilst maintaining compliance with IFRSs for larger for-profit entities (and reintroducing IFRS options in some cases). The Boards expect to finalise the first phase of the convergence project early in 2011.

The AASB also decided not to support Draft Interpretation DI/2010/1 Stripping Costs in the Production Phase of a Surface Mine due to a lack of apparent diversity in practice, an inappropriate unit of account and lack of clarity on the meaning of 'stripping campaign'. The Draft Interpretation is quite contentious in the Australian context due to the country's large resources base and prevalent use of the 'stripping ratio' approach to account for these costs.

Click to access Accounting Alert 2010/12.