Members of the Australian Institute of International Affairs have been invited to provide submissions to the Economics Legislation Committee.

On 20 August 2015 the Senate referred the provisions of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Bill 2015 to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.

The bill provides authority and an appropriation for the payment of Australia’s capital contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which will enable Australia’s membership of the Bank. Under the Articles of Agreement, Australia will be obligated to provide a capital contribution as payment for Australia’s shareholding upon becoming a member of the Bank. Australia’s total shareholding will be US$3.7 billion.

The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations preferably in electronic form submitted online or sent by email to economics.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. The email must include full postal address and contact details.

E-mailed submissions should include your name, phone number and postal address (in the email, not the submission) so that we can verify them and/or contact you.

Submissions are confidential until the Committee releases them. You must not release your submission until the Committee advises that it has accepted and released it. Submissions are protected by parliamentary privilege but the unauthorised release of them is not.

The Committee will normally make submissions public unless there is a request for confidentiality. If you would like a submission or part of it to be kept confidential please say so clearly in the submission.

The Committee will sympathetically consider requests for confidentiality, but cannot make promises in advance. If you have concerns about confidentiality I encourage you to call me to discuss this before lodging the submission. Notes on making submissions are available from the website. The Committee secretariat can also help: phone (02) 6277 3583 or email economics.sen@aph.gov.au. More information about this Committee is available at www.aph.gov.au/senate_economics.

Alternatively, written submissions may be sent to:

Committee Secretary

Senate Economics Legislation Committee

PO Box 6100

Parliament House

Canberra   ACT   2600

The Committee would like to receive submissions by 31 August 2015.