Serco Australia, the company which incarcerates refugees on behalf of the Commonwealth, enjoyed a tidy doubling in profits to $40 million the year before last.

Yet despite its billion-dollar detention centre deal with the government, Serco can’t manage to comply with the Corporations Act and file its accounts on time. And this is the local arm of a top 100 company listed on the London Stock Exchange.

• List of multinationals that ignore reporting laws

Following revelations earlier this week that financial accounts for companies owned by billionaires Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart are missing, a BusinessDay investigation shows a raft of multinational companies with large government contracts have also failed to file their financial reports.

Some, like Serco, are chronic late filers. Others have failed to comply at all. Their accounts are simply invisible to the naked eye. No explanation. No regulatory action either.

According to a source who monitors compliance, some of the largest non-listed companies operating in sensitive industries such as gambling, water, prisons, transport and health have either failed to lodge any accounts at all or habitually lodge months or years after the statutory deadline.

“The failure of Rinehart and Palmer companies to file accounts with ASIC in a timely manner is just the tip of the iceberg,” said the source, preferring to remain anonymous.

“I am aware of literally hundreds of large proprietary companies that should file within four months of year end but either do not file at all or are late in filing. This includes some of the largest and most prestigious privately-owned or foreign-owned companies operating in Australia.”

Australian Correctional Facilities Pty Ltd, which runs Port Phillip prison in Victoria, has not lodged accounts for three years. Victorian lottery services provider Intralot Australian Pty Ltd is regularly months late.

Veolia Water and United Water International have two years of missing accounts apiece while another foreign beneficiary of government water contracts, the Australian holding company for French Suez Group in Australia, is regularly months late.

One of the reasons the disclosure laws are in place is to protect creditors and staff of big private companies. Reed Constructions Australia Pty Ltd, for instance, had not lodged last year’s accounts until this week. They were five months late and, in the meantime, the company had hit the wall, leaving its creditors in the lurch despite having booked substantial revenues from the government’s school building program.

The thousands of sub-contractors owed $80 million by Reed could have prepared for the worst five months ago had Reed been forced to comply with the disclosure laws.

Bernie Ripoll, the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury who oversees corporate regulation, said earlier this week in response to the Clive Palmer story that he was confident that all company directors would be made to “fulfil their full responsibilities”.

“No one is above the law. Everyone, every company, every organisation, is expected to meet their responsibilities,” Ripoll said.

“The law is absolutely clear and ASIC is the regulator. I am very confident that the regulator will use all of its resources and all of its powers to make sure (company directors) fulfil their full responsibilities”.

The law says that a big proprietary company has to file accounts within four months of balance date.

mwest@fairfaxmedia.com.au

New plans … the Homebush Bay Bridge Draft Environmental Assessment for public exhibition.

DEVELOPERS plan to build a 300-metre-long bridge across one of the most polluted waterways in Australia to provide access to public transport and parks in one of Sydney’s fastest growing areas.

A bridge connecting Rhodes and Wentworth Point, next to the Sydney Olympic site, has been recommended in several government reports for years but the project now appears close to beginning with developers building housing at Wentworth Point agreeing to fund the $43 million project and hand it over to the government.

Under plans on exhibition, the two-lane bridge will be closed to cars and available to people travelling only on buses, walking or riding bicycles to discourage vehicle use.

The bridge will give thousands of new residents in apartments on the Rhodes peninsula direct access to the Homebush Bay Olympic facilities, surrounding parks and the ferry that runs to Circular Quay.

Residents on the western side of Homebush Bay will have direct access to the railway station, shops and other facilities at Rhodes.

Fairmead Business, a company representing developers, has agreed to build the 11-metre wide bridge that will have one lane running in each direction to be shared by buses and cyclists, with a separate, partly covered footpath with rest stops for pedestrians.

Under a proposed voluntary planning agreement, the bridge will be handed over to the Sydney Olympic Park Authority once built.

Fairmead says the bridge will encourage walking and cycling to work as a viable alternative to the cars and help the government meet its targets to increase cycling and walking rates.

The bridge would be built from two work sites, one each at Rhodes and Wentworth Point. Some work would also occur over the water from barges.

The bridge superstructure would be built from reinforced and prestressed concrete supported on piers in the bay, which remains the most polluted in Sydney Harbour because of the waste dumped by factories which once lined the Parramatta River.