Highlights

• 2904 registered corporations; up 4.4% from last year
• 172 are RNTBCs (registered native title bodies corporate)
• Call centre inquiries up 10%.
• 97% say our online guidance is helpful (of those surveyed as part of an independent review of ORIC)
• 96.5% of corporations met reporting requirements. (100% in Arnhem Land and Groote Eylandt)
• Half of all web visitors search the public register, i.e. do a ‘search for a corporation’.
• For the first time ever, most forms were lodged online.
• Updates to details for a corporation, contact person, secretary or director up 26%.
• Western Australia had the most training courses (21)
• Northern Territory had the most participants in training (226)
• Queensland had the most corporations in training (86).
• 11 two-day governance workshops were held in regional and remote locations. A participant in Mount Isa said, ‘I appreciated the interaction, openness and honesty, reality, sharing of problems, and the trainers – compassionate and knowledgeable.’
• 12 corporations were under special administration during 2016–17. Their average duration was 6½ months.
• Northern Territory corporations attract very few complaints; Queensland corporations attract more than their share.

Hot topics:

• Duties of directors and other officers is the most requested training topic, and the most downloaded fact sheet. (That fact sheet is downloaded almost twice as many times as the next most popular one, on rule books.)
• Managing membership of RNTBCs. Membership is the subject of many inquiries, complaints and disputes.
• A technical review of the CATSI Act is currently underway to examine better ways to support and regulate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations.