Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) A person commits an offence if the person, in a document required by or for the purposes of this Act or lodged with or submitted to the Registrar:
(a) makes or authorises the making of a statement that, to the person's knowledge, is false or misleading in a material particular; or
(b) omits or authorises the omission of any matter or thing without which the document is, to the person's knowledge, misleading in a material respect.
Penalty: 200 penalty units or imprisonment for 5 years, or both.
(2) A person who makes or authorises the making of a statement that is based on information that, to the person's knowledge:
(a) is false or misleading in a material particular; or
(b) has omitted from it a matter or thing the omission of which renders the information misleading in a material respect;
is, for the purposes of subsection (1), taken to have made or authorised the making of a statement that, to the person's knowledge, was false or misleading in a material particular.
(3) A person is not liable to be prosecuted for an offence in consequence of a regulation made under section 633 - 1 as well as for an offence against subsection (1) of this section.
(4) A person commits an offence if the person, in a document required by or for the purposes of this Act or lodged with the Registrar:
(a) makes or authorises the making of a statement that is false or misleading in a material particular; or
(b) omits or authorises the omission of any matter or thing without which the document is misleading in a material respect;
without having taken reasonable steps to ensure that the statement was not false or misleading or to ensure that the statement did not omit any matter or thing without which the document would be misleading, as the case may be.
Penalty: 200 penalty units or imprisonment for 5 years, or both.
(5) A person who makes or authorises the making of a statement without having taken reasonable steps to ensure that the information on which the statement was based:
(a) was not false or misleading in a material particular; and
(b) did not have omitted from it a matter or thing the omission of which would render the information misleading in a material respect;
is, for the purposes of subsection (4), taken to have made or authorised the making of a statement without having taken reasonable steps to ensure that the statement was not false or misleading.
(6) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (4), if:
(a) at a meeting, a person votes in favour of a resolution approving, or otherwise approves, a document required by or for the purposes of this Act or required to be lodged; and
(b) the document contains a statement that, to the person's knowledge, is false or misleading in a material particular, or omits any matter or thing without which the document is, to the person's knowledge, misleading in a material respect;
the person is taken to have authorised the making of the statement or the omission of the matter or thing.
(7) For the purposes of this section, a statement, report or other document that:
(a) relates to affairs of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporation or of a subsidiary of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporation; and
(b) is not itself required by this Act to be laid before the corporation in general meeting; and
(c) is attached to or included with a report of the directors sent under Division 342 to members of the corporation or laid before the corporation at an AGM of the corporation;
is taken to be part of the report referred to in paragraph (c).