What it does
The Business Names Registration Act 2011 establishes a single national register of business names, the Business Names Register. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) runs the register under Part 9. Before 2012, business names were registered separately in each State and Territory; the Act consolidates that patchwork into a Commonwealth scheme that operates uniformly across the country in States that have referred power and in self-governing Territories.
The Act has ten Parts. Part 1 deals with preliminaries (definitions, constitutional basis, interaction with State laws, and objects). Part 2 contains the offences. Part 3 governs registration. Part 4 imposes ongoing notification obligations. Part 5 governs cancellation. Part 6 deals with renewal. Part 7 provides for review of decisions. Part 8 deals with public access to the register. Part 9 deals with the Registrar's appointment, functions, and information handling. Part 10 contains general provisions.
The Act's twin objects are stated in section 16: to ensure that those engaging with a business carried on under a business name can identify the entity behind the name and how to contact it; and to remove the inconvenience that flowed from registering a single business name under the law of more than one Australian jurisdiction.