State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) (Application) Regulations 1997

The Regulations enact a single core concept: prescription of entities for the purposes of section 5 of the State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) Act 1996 (r. 3). The text uses no definitions beyond this prescription mechanism. The primary conceptual points in the instrument are therefore procedural and calendrical.

• Prescription for a defined statutory purpose. Regulation 3 states that “The State enterprises set out in column 1 of the Table are prescribed for the purposes of section 5 of the Act.” That formulation means the Regulations do not create a free‑standing concept of “State enterprise”; they designate particular legal entities as meeting whatever criterion or effect s. 5 of the parent Act attaches to a prescribed entity. The Regulations do not define s. 5, nor do they repeat any substantive content of the Act. Practitioners must therefore read r. 3 together with s. 5 of the Act to understand the legal effect of being a prescribed enterprise.
• Temporal operation. The Table pairs each prescribed entity with an effective commencement date or a contingent trigger. The dates are of three kinds: (a) fixed calendar dates when the prescription takes effect (for example Gold Corporation from 1 July 2002); (b) dates tied to commencement of another Act or section (for example Western Australian Land Information Authority “the day on which the Land Information Authority Act 2006 s. 5 comes into operation”); and (c) dates tied to commencement of an amending regulation (for example Western Carbon Pty Ltd, whose prescription is staged to the day the 2003 amendment regulations commence). That mix produces administrative complexity because an entity’s status as a prescribed enterprise can be immediate, future-dated, or contingent on other legislative instruments.
• Cross-reference to enabling Act. Regulation 2 makes these Regulations commence on the day the parent Act comes into operation. That places the Regulations in a dependent relationship with the Act and causes the Table’s dates to interact with the Act’s own commencement arrangements. The Regulations therefore operate purely as the application schedule for s. 5 rather than as an independent regulatory regime.
• Reliance on reprint and amendment instruments. The compilation table and notes record an ongoing series of amendment regulations, consequential amendment regulations and reprints. The instrument relies on those modification pathways to add, remove or alter entries in the Table. Mechanically, the instrument delegates future changes to those amendment rules, which are then reflected in the published compilation.

Because the Regulations do not set out tax-equivalent mechanics, they leave unanswered substantive concepts such as how tax equivalents are calculated, assessed, or enforced. To discover those concepts, one must consult the principal Act and any subordinate instruments made under it. The Regulations’ conceptual economy means their legal effect is fully realised only when read as part of the Act’s statutory architecture.

The Regulations directly affect the legal entities listed in the Table at regulation 3. The Table names both specific statutory corporations and corporate entities established under other Acts. A non-exhaustive list of named entries in the Table includes, with their commencement annotations:

• Western Carbon Pty Ltd, registered under the Corporations Act 2001 of the Commonwealth, with commencement tied to the day the 2003 amendment regulations come into operation.
• Electricity Generation and Retail Corporation, Electricity Networks Corporation, and Regional Power Corporation, each established by the Electricity Corporations Act 2005 s. 4, with commencement 1 April 2006.
• Forest Products Commission, established under the Forest Products Act 2000, commencement 1 January 2001.
• Gold Corporation (constituted under the Gold Corporation Act 1987 s. 4), commencement 1 July 2002.
• Insurance Commission of Western Australia (formerly the State Government Insurance Commission) established by the Insurance Commission of Western Australia Act 1986 s. 4, commencement 1 July 1997.
• Western Australian Land Information Authority, established by the Land Information Authority Act 2006 s. 5, with commencement the day that section comes into operation.
• Port authorities under the Port Authorities Act 1999, including Fremantle Port Authority, Kimberley Ports Authority, Mid West Ports Authority, Pilbara Ports Authority and Southern Ports Authority, with varying commencement dates and with some triggered by 2014 amendment regulations.
• State Government Insurance Corporation (as constituted by the Insurance Commission Act provisions), Bunbury Water Corporation and Busselton Water Corporation, Water Corporation, Western Australian Land Authority (LandCorp), Western Australian Treasury Corporation, and Keystart under the Keystart Act 2024, where Keystart’s prescription attaches to section 15 of its Act coming into operation.

Who pays. The Regulations themselves do not levy a charge. However, by prescribing an entity for the purposes of s. 5 of the parent Act, the Regulations identify which bodies may be subject to the tax-equivalents framework set out in the parent Act. That is, the practical fiscal effect flows to the prescribed entities: if s. 5 of the Act imposes obligations, liabilities, or reporting duties on prescribed enterprises, those obligations will attach to the bodies named in the Table from the listed commencement dates.

Who decides. The Regulations are an executive instrument made under the parent Act. The choice of which entities are prescribed has been exercised via amendment regulations across multiple years, as recorded in the compilation table. The Regulations therefore encode decisions that have been taken by the Parliament and Executive over time to add specified state bodies to the scope of s. 5.

Who else is affected. Third parties who contract with, audit, advise, or invest in the prescribed entities are affected indirectly. Inclusion of an entity within the Act’s s. 5 mechanism may change the entity’s tax or accounting treatment, internal cost recovery, pricing, dividend or capital distribution practices; but the Regulations do not themselves state those substantive changes. Users and counterparties should therefore track whether a body they deal with is prescribed from a given date, because that may alter the body’s financial statements or commercial conduct in ways that follow from the principal Act.

Entities not named in the Table are not made prescribed by these Regulations. The Table is the operative list in this instrument. Any addition or removal requires use of the amending regulation pathway noted in the compilation table.

The Regulations do not themselves impose operational duties, monetary liabilities, rights to remedies, or procedural obligations other than the administrative act of prescription. The single operative provision is regulation 3, which lists the entities prescribed for the purposes of section 5 of the Act and specifies the dates on which prescription commences for each (r. 3; Table).

• Duties: There are no express operational duties contained in these Regulations. They do not set tax-equivalent calculations, collection rules, compliance reporting, or audit arrangements. If a prescribed entity gains duties under the parent Act because it is brought within s. 5, those duties are found in the Act. The Regulations’ role is therefore to create the legal fact that triggers whatever duties s. 5 attaches. Practitioners should read r. 3 as a statutory trigger rather than as a charging or compliance provision in its own right.
• Rights: The Regulations do not confer rights such as appeal rights or exemptions. Any substantive rights that a prescribed entity or a third party may have in relation to tax-equivalents must be located in the parent Act or other subordinate instruments. The Regulations simply determine the subjects of s. 5.
• Timing obligations: The only time-based legal effect in the Regulations is the commencement timing recorded opposite each prescribed entity. That timing creates an obligation on those preparing financial and governance arrangements to recognise that, from that date, the entity is captured by whatever provision s. 5 of the Act enforces. For entities whose commencement is contingent on other Acts or on amendment regulations, the date of legal capture may be uncertain until the triggering instrument commences. Parties therefore must monitor the commencement events cited in the Table.
• Record-keeping and corporate governance implications: The Regulations create an administrative requirement for affected entities to note the date on which their status as a prescribed enterprise arises. In practice, that requires an entity’s board, company secretary or governance officer to update its statutory roll and to consider the implications of being prescribed for reporting, audit and fiscal planning, but those follow-on duties are not laid down in the Regulations themselves.

Because these Regulations are narrowly framed, the practical content of duties and rights will be discovered only by cross-referencing the parent Act, rather than by reading the Regulations alone. The Regulations allocate who is subject to the Act’s s. 5; they do not specify the nature of the subsequent legal entitlements or obligations that flow from that allocation.

These Regulations contain no provisions that create criminal penalties, civil penalties, administrative sanctions or enforcement mechanisms. The text comprises a short citation clause (r. 1), a commencement clause linking the instrument to the parent Act (r. 2), and the Table of prescribed State enterprises with commencement dates (r. 3). None of those provisions addresses penalty, offence, or enforcement processes.

Consequently:

• The Regulations do not itself provide enforcement powers. Any enforcement, penalties, or sanctions that apply to the conduct of a prescribed body must be found in the parent Act or other relevant legislation. Practitioners must therefore consult the State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) Act 1996 and any instruments made under it to identify penal or enforcement regimes that apply once an entity is prescribed under these Regulations.
• The Regulations do, by operation of their prescription, potentially expose named entities to enforcement under the parent Act where the parent Act attaches obligations and penalties to being captured by s. 5. Those enforcement consequences are not described in these Regulations.
• The compilation table and amendment notes show that prescription status has been altered over time by amendment regulations and consequential regulations. Enforcement of the parent Act in relation to an entity will be contingent on the correctness of the prescription status at the relevant time. Where a commencement is contingent on another instrument, enforcement questions may turn on the precise date the trigger instrument commenced. That is an evidential and administrative point for enforcement agencies and affected entities, but the Regulations themselves do not set enforcement dates or procedures.

For any inquiry about penalties, enforcement powers, inspectorates, objection and review rights, or prosecution processes, the Regulations require a practitioner to consult the parent Act and to trace any delegated legislation made under it. The Regulations provide the mapping to which entities are covered; they do not specify or implement enforcement mechanisms.

The Regulations are primarily an application or scheduling instrument that cross-references numerous other statutes and subordinate instruments. The Table explicitly cites the enabling or constituent Acts for many entries, and the compilation notes record amendment regulations and consequential instruments that changed the Table over time. The interaction pattern is therefore one of cross-reference, contingent commencement and consequential amendment rather than of substantive legal overlap.

Key interaction features:

• Cross-references to constituent Acts. Many prescribed entities are established by separate Acts whose provisions constitute their legal identity. The Table identifies the founding Act for each entity. Examples include the Electricity Corporations Act 2005 (for Electricity Generation and Retail Corporation, Electricity Networks Corporation, Regional Power Corporation), the Forest Products Act 2000 (for Forest Products Commission), the Gold Corporation Act 1987 (for Gold Corporation), the Land Information Authority Act 2006 (for the Western Australian Land Information Authority), the Port Authorities Act 1999 (for various port authorities) and the Water Corporation Act 1995. For those entities, the Regulations interact with the founding Act by using the entity created under that Act as the subject of prescription. The Regulations do not alter the constituting Acts, but they operate on the bodies those Acts create.
• Commencement links. Some entries in the Table are contingent on the commencement of particular provisions of other Acts, for example the Western Australian Land Information Authority (the day s. 5 of the Land Information Authority Act 2006 comes into operation) and Keystart (the day s. 15 of the Keystart Act 2024 comes into operation). That linkage means the legal moment at which the Regulations’ prescription becomes effective depends on the course of commencement of other legislation. Practically that requires coordination between counsel, the entity and the state statute law office to determine exact operative dates. The compilation table includes commencement particulars for those connected Acts.
• Amendment and consequential regulation interaction. The compilation table lists numerous amending instruments and consequential amendments that have altered the Table (for example the State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) (Application) Amendment Regulations 2013 and 2014, and the Electricity Corporations (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2006 and 2013). Those instruments changed which entities are listed and when their prescription commences. The Regulations therefore coexist with an administrative chain of subordinate instruments that must be read together to establish the current list and dates.
• Reprints and statutory revision. The instrument has been reprinted and consolidated at various points, with Reprint 1 as at 6 June 2003 and Reprint 2 as at 22 August 2014, and compilation notes referencing further amendments to 2025. Practitioners must rely on the current consolidated form or check the reprint and amendment history to understand the present legal position.
• Naming and renaming of entities. The compilation notes note historical changes in short titles and entity names, for example the former short title State Government Insurance Commission being changed to the Insurance Commission of Western Australia Act 1986 via Acts Amendment (ICWA) Act 1996 s. 5 and the Reprints Act update. The Regulations therefore interact with statute law by reflecting renaming and reclassification of entities in other Acts; continuity of prescription depends on accurate referential practice when an entity’s statutory name changes.

Because these Regulations do not stand alone, the practical legal effect arises from reading the Table entries together with the constituent Acts that create the entities and with the parent Act’s substantive regime in s. 5. The Regulations also interact with the machinery of subordinate legislation: amendment regulations add, vary or remove Table entries and can attach commencement contingencies. The compilation table and notes are therefore part of the instrument’s interaction architecture.

The Regulations have an extensive amendment history recorded in the Table’s footnotes and the compilation table. The text of the Regulations itself is brief, but the compilation table records successive amending instruments and reprints that changed the Table and the timing of prescriptions. The key amendment milestones recorded in the document are set out below in chronological sequence as they appear in the compilation notes.

• Original enactment and commencement. The Regulations were published 6 June 1997 and commenced 7 June 1997, aligned with the parent Act’s commencement arrangements (Compilation table).
• Late 1990s amendments. Amendment Regulations were published in 1998 and 1999, with specific Gazette entries cited (e.g. 5 Feb 1999 p. 408; 21 Dec 1999 p. 6420‑1). Those instruments altered the Table entries.
• Early 2000s amendments. The Table was amended by regulations published 29 Dec 2000 and 28 Mar 2002, and a second amendment in 2002 dated 28 Jun 2002. The State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) (Application) Amendment Regulations 2003 were published 6 May 2003 and are specifically referenced in the Table as the trigger day for the prescription of Western Carbon Pty Ltd. Reprint 1 consolidates the instrument as at 6 June 2003.
• Mid 2000s electricity reform adjustments. The Electricity Corporations (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2006 and a State Enterprises amendment in December 2006 altered the Table to capture the new electricity corporations established under the Electricity Corporations Act 2005, with an operational date of 1 April 2006 for certain electricity entities and a December 2006 amendment (that took effect 1 January 2007 for parts) recorded in the compilation table.
• 2010 and 2013 amendments and reprints. Amendment Regulations in 2010 and 2013 are recorded, with Reprint 2 as at 22 August 2014 including amendments to that date. The Electricity Corporations consequential amendments of 2013 and 2014 also altered the Table.
• 2014 port authority changes. Several port authorities were prescribed by amendment regulations in 2014, with commencement entries that depend on the specified 2014 amendment regulations. The compilation notes identify instruments in June, September and October 2014 that affected port authorities.
• 2022 amendment. The State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) (Application) Amendment Regulations 2022 are recorded as SL 2022/69, with imminence of their operative parts noted (3-4 June 2022).
• 2024 and 2025 updates. The Table was updated to include Keystart, established under the Keystart Act 2024, with the compilation table noting assent in November 2024 and a commencement of 2 July 2025 for Pt. 8 Div. 6 of the Keystart Act. The marginal note beside regulation 3 lists numerous Gazette entries and the 2024 statutory law references, and the compilation ends with an attribution date of 2025 for the compiled work. The marginal note also records SL 2022/69 r. 4 and No. 44 of 2024 s. 70 among the amending items.

The compilation table provides the authoritative chronology for the Regulations as consolidated at the dates shown. For present-day application, practitioners should rely on the latest consolidated reprint or the legislation website to capture all amending instruments up to the current date. The Regulations’ amendment structure is conventional: changes to the list of prescribed enterprises and to commencement dates have been achieved by subsequent amendment regulations and consequential instruments, rather than by republishing an entirely new primary statute.

The Regulations themselves contain no recorded litigation history in the text provided. The document is a statutory compilation and its compilation notes and table do not list any cases, judicial decisions, or appeals concerning the instrument. The absence of a litigation note in the compilation does not establish that no litigation has ever arisen touching the parent Act or the tax-equivalents regime, but as concerns these Regulations specifically, the text records no judicially resolved disputes or case references.

Practical implications of the absence of litigation history in this instrument:

• No reported case law is cited in the Regulation text or compilation notes that interprets the prescription list, the commencement contingencies, or the legal effect of being listed. Where interpretative questions have arisen in practice, such authority is not recorded here. Practitioners seeking judicial construction of these Regulations should search case law databases and the judgments of relevant courts for litigation that engages the parent Act or the subsidiary regulations.
• Disputes about whether an entity was properly prescribed on a particular date, or about whether the contingent trigger for commencement occurred, would turn on primary source materials such as the amendment regulations and the Gazette entries recorded in the compilation table. The compilation itself records those Gazette sources, which are the documentary evidence likely to be used in any administrative or judicial review.
• Because the Regulations operate as a scheduling instrument, litigation relating to them would often be collateral to larger disputes under the parent Act concerning tax-equivalent liability, assessment or administrative decision making. Any such merits disputes would require cross-referencing the Act, subordinate instruments, and financial records.

Accordingly, while no litigation history is reported in these Regulations, affected parties should treat the compilation table and Gazette commencement notices as the starting point for any evidentiary inquiry and consult case law databases for judicial decisions dealing with the parent Act and its application to prescribed entities.

The Regulations are compact but contain a number of technical and practical traps for the unwary. The following points are drawn directly from the instrument and its compilation and notes. Each item is grounded in the text and reflects how the Regulations operate in practice.

• Prescription is a trigger, not a substantive rule. Regulation 3 prescribes entities for the purposes of s. 5 of the Act. That means the Regulations determine who is subject to the parent Act’s s. 5, but they do not describe what s. 5 requires. A common error is to treat inclusion in the Table as itself setting tax liability; it does not. You must read the parent Act for substantive obligations.
• Commencement can be contingent and therefore uncertain. Several Table entries start “The day on which” some other Act or amendment regulation comes into operation. That wording creates legal dependence on a separate commencement event. Examples include Western Carbon Pty Ltd, the Western Australian Land Information Authority, some port authorities, Bunbury and Busselton Water Corporations, and Keystart. To determine the exact operative date you must check the commencement instrument identified in the Table and the compilation table. Do not assume calendar dates where triggers are used.
• Multiple names and renaming require careful cross-referencing. The Table and notes refer to entities by statutory titles and sometimes note former names. For example the Insurance Commission of Western Australia was formerly called the State Government Insurance Commission. The Reprints Act note indicates the short title was changed in legislation and reflected under reprint practices. Failing to check historical name changes can give rise to misreading whether an entity is captured.
• Amending instruments may create lag between publication and effect. The compilation table lists many amendment regulations with differing stated commencement dates in their heads and bodies. Gazette publication and the instrument’s own commencement clauses can produce staggered effective dates for different provisions of an amending regulation. Practitioners should not assume an amendment regulation’s publication date is the same as the operative date for the Table change. Consult the commencement note attached to the amending regulation.
• Reprints show consolidated position but require verification. The compilation lists Reprint 1 as at 6 June 2003 and Reprint 2 as at 22 August 2014. A reprint is useful for arrival at a consolidated text, but you must verify whether subsequent amendment regulations have been made since the reprint. The marginal note shows amendments up to 2024 and the compilation shows activity as late as 2025. Use the latest consolidated copy on the legislation website.
• The Regulations do not articulate enforcement or remedies. Because no enforcement regime is specified in these Regulations, an entity may be prescribed but still unclear about the procedural steps it must take under the parent Act. Confirmation of duties, rights and penalty exposure requires consulting the parent Act. That gap can create compliance delay if an entity assumes that being listed in the Table is self-explanatory.
• Practical governance follow-through is not mandated. The Regulations do not require prescribed entities to notify stakeholders, alter accounts, or publish changes. Boards and governance officers must therefore proactively manage the internal consequences of being prescribed. That practical requirement arises from the parent Act, budgetary needs, or accounting standards, not from the Regulations themselves.
• Multiple instruments may interact to produce the current list. The Table has been altered by many instruments across years, including consequential amendments tied to sectoral reforms such as electricity corporation restructuring. A review that looks at only the principal Act and these Regulations may miss consequential amendments enacted by other regulations. The compilation table lists many such instruments; check those records where a narrow historical question is in issue.
• Timing mismatch between the Regulations and entity establishment. In a few cases the entity’s own establishing Act comes into operation at a different time from the date recorded in the Table. Confirm the entity’s own establishment and the Regulation’s commencement date separately, because the Table sometimes prescribes an entity only once it is publicly and legally constituted.

These are practical, source-grounded pitfalls that arise from the way the Regulations operate. They are not speculative; each is supported by the text of regulation 3, the Table, and the compilation notes.

Because the Regulations operate narrowly to prescribe which entities fall within s. 5 of the parent Act, compliance steps for affected bodies and advisers are primarily about identification, monitoring and coordination rather than meeting obligations stated in the Regulations themselves. The Regulations require no action from third parties except for those who must determine whether they are captured by s. 5 and when that capture takes effect. The following practical steps follow directly from the text and the compilation notes.

• Confirm whether your entity appears in the Table. The operative list of prescribed enterprises is the Table in regulation 3. Start by checking whether the entity’s statutory name appears in column 1. If the entity is named the Table establishes its prescribed status as of the date shown in column 2. If the entity is not listed, it is not prescribed by these Regulations.
• Verify the precise commencement trigger and effective date. Where the Table gives a fixed calendar date, that is the effective date. Where the Table ties commencement to another instrument or to an amending regulation, identify and obtain the triggering instrument. For example, Western Carbon Pty Ltd’s prescription is tied to the commencement of the 2003 amendment regulations. The compilation table records those amending regulations and their Gazette notices. Do not rely on publication dates alone; consult the commencement clauses of the triggering instrument to determine the operative date.
• Cross-reference the parent Act. Regulation 3 prescribes entities “for the purposes of section 5 of the Act.” The Regulations do not set out the obligations that follow. Once an entity is confirmed as prescribed, counsel or in-house advisers must read s. 5 of the State Enterprises (Commonwealth Tax Equivalents) Act 1996 and associated provisions to identify substantive duties, reporting obligations and potential liabilities. The Regulations strictly answer the “who and when” question; the “what and how” are found in the parent Act.
• Maintain governance records. Boards, company secretaries and finance officers of prescribed entities should record the date of prescription in corporate registers and governance minutes. Even though the Regulations do not require notification, good corporate practice will be to document the regulatory trigger and to allocate responsibility internally to assess the parent Act’s consequences for accounts, tax-equivalent calculations, and dividend policy.
• Monitor amendment instruments and reprints. The compilation table shows numerous subsequent amendment regulations and reprints. Subscribe to the Western Australian legislation updates or check the legislation website to capture any further amendments that add or remove entities, or change commencement dates. Where an entity’s prescription depends on other legislation, monitor that other legislation’s commencement schedules.
• Coordinate with auditors and finance advisers. Because prescription may have accounting and tax-equivalent consequences, ensure your auditors and finance team are aware of the commencement date. They will need to determine whether the parent Act requires changes to accounting treatment, disclosures, or tax-equivalent obligations from the specified date. While the Regulations do not set these rules, they do signal the start point for any changes the parent Act requires.
• Check entity naming and historic notes. If an entity has been renamed or reconstituted, check the compilation notes and the founding Act referenced in the Table to ensure identity continuity. The compilation notes specifically record the renaming of the State Government Insurance Commission to the Insurance Commission of Western Australia and other statutory name changes. These matters are evidence matters in any compliance file.
• Seek legal advice where commencement is contingent. Where commencement is contingent on another instrument, obtain legal confirmation of the effective date once the trigger instrument has commenced. Keep documentary evidence of the triggering instrument’s Gazette notice and of the precise clause of the triggering instrument that effects commencement. Administrative and enforcement disputes will often hinge on proving the exact commencement date.
• Keep a log of related legislation. For entities established under other Acts (for example port, water, land authorities, electricity corporations), keep a cross-reference file that includes the founding Act citations given in the Table. That practice makes it easier to research the entity’s powers and obligations that interact with the parent Act’s tax-equivalent regime.

These compliance steps flow directly from the Regulations’ structure. The Regulations do not themselves specify reporting forms, calculation methodologies or payment timetables. They allocate subjects and dates. Compliance therefore means confirming status and then acting under the parent Act and any relevant accounting and tax standards.