Your profession, plainly · LEGAL
You practise law. Since the first of July twenty twenty-six, some of the services you provide every week — trust money, property transactions, setting up companies — are designated services under Australia's anti-money-laundering law. Here is what that actually asks of a legal practice, and what it never asks: your client's privilege.
Since 1 July 2026
First, the frame. You are not regulated for who you are — you are regulated for one or two specific services the Act lists by name. Provide one, and you are what the law calls a reporting entity: enrolled with AUSTRAC, running a small program, checking who you deal with. Not a suspect. A gatekeeper.
receiving, holding and controlling (including disbursing) or managing a person's: (a) money; or (b) accounts; or (c) securities and securities accounts; or (d) virtual assets; or (e) other property; as part of assisting the person in the planning or execution of a transaction, or otherwise acting for or on behalf of a person in a transaction, in the course of carrying on a business
The everyday gate
Day to day, the visible change is small. Before you provide that designated service, you confirm who your customer is — a couple of extra minutes for the honest ones, which is nearly everyone. The same gate for every customer. Routine, universal, nothing personal.
The program behind it
Behind the counter sits a small program: a risk assessment in your own words, policies your senior people adopt, one named compliance officer, and staff who have been trained. And the Act itself right-sizes it — your steps need only be appropriate to the nature, size and complexity of your business. Small firm, simpler program. Never nothing, but never a bank's program either.
The two triggers
Day to day, two triggers matter. A suspicion formed honestly on what is in front of you starts a report clock — and the report itself is something you must never reveal to the client. And cash at or over ten thousand dollars has its own routine report. The main series on this channel walks both, step by step.
What the law never asks of you
Now the fear every lawyer has — and the answer. This regime does not touch legal professional privilege. The Act protects it expressly, in provisions strengthened for these reforms. You are never forced to choose between your client's privilege and the law — and where a report might touch privileged material, the Act even gives it its own longer clock.
Write it down
And the habit that holds it all together: write things down when they happen. The check you ran, the question you asked, the call you made. Records keep for seven years — and the record of an honest process is the best protection your business can own.