Page 151 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 9 February 2022
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can be cancelled, suspended or have conditions placed upon it. The conduct of such an audit and request for information are currently determined under guidelines contained in two disallowable instruments: DI2018-287 Government Procurement (Secure Local Jobs Audit) Guidelines 2018 and DI2018-288 Government Procurement (Secure Local Jobs Complaints and Noncompliance Investigation) Guidelines 2018.
In other words, there is already a thoroughly constructed regime in the act to ensure that an employer is complying with the code. The exercise of the current audit powers involves engagement with the employer, who has the right to reply to the registrar’s concerns and produce evidence in support of their position. This is in accordance with the well-established principles of natural justice. However, proposed 22S1 is an example of executive overreach and does not include a right of reply from a suspect employer, which is a breach, in my opinion, of natural justice.
The registrar, as I have said, already has powers to audit a holder of a certificate, under division 2B.4; and the addition of a power to suspend or place conditions upon a certificate if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect noncompliance is unnecessary and excessive. Employers should not be in such a position of such uncertainty that their certificate will be cancelled because the registrar believed they have reasonable grounds to suspect noncompliance, especially when the employer has no opportunity to respond.
It is particularly distressing that this new power—this new sword over the heads of currently compliant employers—is being introduced during a time of COVID in our community, when employers have been seriously affected by COVID restrictions. This is not the time to make them even more nervous about being able to complete a government contract, let alone the fact that the mere insertion of this power is a denial to an employer of the right to reply to reasonable grounds to suspect noncompliance. Minister Gentleman has said that the bill will enable the registrar to have power to monitor compliance with the code, but there is quite a strict regime already in place. While we support the strengthening of that audit regime, insertion of this clause, section 22SA, is executive overreach and not considerate of an employer’s right to respond to concerns about their compliance.
As I come to a close, I want to thank senior Treasury officials, the registrar himself and ministerial advisors for their briefing in mid-November last year, and I urge my fellow members in this Assembly not to allow the insertion of this unbridled, unchecked and unfair provision into the act. Thank you.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Safety, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.40): I find it striking that Mr Cain thinks that strengthening workplace safety could be excessive—quite extraordinary. The section applies if the registrar has reasonable grounds to suspect that an entity that holds a secure local jobs code certificate may have failed to comply with the code; and the registrar may, for a stated reasonable period, suspend the entity’s certificate or impose or amend conditions on the entity’s certificate.
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