Nelson Committee: An Inquiry into Employee Share Ownership in Australia

The Australian Employee Ownership Association (AEOA) was one of 40 organisations, companies and individuals to have made a submission to the Nelson Committee set up by the Federal Government and was the first to give evidence before it. The AEOA's submissions are provided below in PDF format.

To read them you need a viewer capable of reading PDF files. This most common is Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat reader, click here or on the graphic below:

• Original Submission
• Supplementary Submission 1
• Supplementary Submission 2
• Supplementary Submission 3
• Supplementary Submission 4
• Supplementary Submission 5

Nelson Committee Report

Chaired by Dr Brendan Nelson MP (Member for Bradfield), the Committee issued its report, Shared Endeavours: an inquiry into employee share ownership in Australia, in September 2000. The key chapters from Shared Endeavours (in PDF format) are listed below. The report provides the best overview of the history of employee share ownership in Australia and the legislative framework for it - Division 13A of the ITAA (which was superceded in December, 2009 when Division 83A of the ITAA was enacted). 

• Front Pages
• Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Chapter 2 - ESOPs antipodean fables: nature and rationale
• Chapter 3 - Aligning interests: employee share plans and public policy
• Chapter 4 - Administration and taxation arrangements
• Chapter 5 - Further initiatives to facilitate the growth of employee share plans
• Dissenting Report - Labor members of the Committee.

The remainder of the report (including Appendices) can be found on the Committee's website.

The key recommendations of Shared Endeavours were very close to the policy positions advocated for by the AEOA - see the various AEOA submissions to the Nelson Committee as linked above.

The Federal government's reponse (the Liberal/Nationals Coalition Government) in 2003 to the Nelson Committee's recommendations can be seen at "Government Response" .

It should be noted that the ALP Federal Government enacted a new Division of the Tax Act (Division 83A) covering employee share schemes in December, 2009. Some of the issues raised in the Nelson Report have been addressed in this new legislation (especially the issue of reporting requirements). What the ALP members of the Review Committee said in the "Dissenting Report" to Shared Endeavours (see above) was also significant to this new legislation.  

For a complete overview of the legislation enacted in December, 2009, and all the supporting material on the tax changes made, see the Australian Tax Office's new web-page "Reforming the taxation of employee share schemes".