What it does
The State Financial Institutions and Metway Merger Act 1996 has two stated objects set out in section 4. First, it provides for particular requirements about the merger of the State financial institutions (SFIs) listed in section 5 with Metway. Second, it provides for particular requirements in relation to Suncorp’s constitution and general obligations of Suncorp. The Act originally contained extensive machinery provisions to facilitate the amalgamation of entities such as QIDC, SIF, Suncorp Finance Limited, SBS, and their wholly-owned subsidiaries with Metway under a scheme of arrangement (the Metway scheme of arrangement defined in section 6). However, the vast majority of those original provisions , including Parts 3, 4, and 5 and many sections in Part 2 , were repealed by the 2013 amendment act (No. 39 of 2013). As a result, the current Act is largely a holding document that imposes ongoing structural and governance obligations on Suncorp and, through Part 7, preserves certain limited State guarantees for liabilities arising before the Metway amalgamation day. The 2024 amendments (No. 36 of 2024) inserted a new Part 6A containing three general obligations: Suncorp must act consistently with the mandatory constitution provisions (section 69A), maintain its registration with ASIC (section 69B), and notify the Treasurer immediately of any act, omission, or proposed act or omission inconsistent with an obligation under that part (section 69C). Part 6B (section 69D) extends Parts 6 and 6A to any entity that acquires all or substantially all of Suncorp’s Australian business, reading references to Suncorp as references to that acquiring entity. Part 7 (sections 70 to 75) deals with the State’s guarantee of existing QIDC and SIF liabilities that arose before the Metway amalgamation day, and allows the Treasurer to require guarantee fees from certain entities. Part 8 (section 76) provides a six-month transitional period for compliance with the new section 64 constitution requirements, inserted by the 2024 amendments.