Page 5375 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
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We note that industry are broadly supportive of this bill and are supportive of moves to ensure that contractors are paid on time. However, industry groups have raised some concerns with the opposition on some aspects of this bill, which I would like to raise on their behalf.
The MBA have some issues with the bill, even though they are supportive, and there is some concern that a threshold should be placed on the size of the transactions that are subject to adjudication. The HIA are concerned that without a threshold, adjudications involving large payments may need more time than the allotted 10 days to adjudicate the dispute and that the adjudication may not be completed properly.
The Canberra Business Council would like the government to consider the option of ensuring that payments are made immediately following adjudication, even though that adjudication may be under appeal. With these concerns in mind, I will be moving amendments to the bill to bring the review date of the legislation forward from 2015 to 2012.
Given that this bill introduces a rapid adjudication system, one where issues surrounding payments to contractors should be resolved very quickly, the government should have enough evidence to commence a review of the bill after it has been in place for two years. Two years should be ample time for the government to properly consider the views of industry and then report back to the Assembly on ways to improve the bill.
I will just say in closing at the in-principle stage that there is, as I said, broad support in industry. I think there will be some concerns about some aspects of it, and there will be a challenge when implementing this in getting it right. Whilst I have had a number of contractors approach me who have said that it is a wonderful idea—that they do have issues around being paid on time—there is another view. Whilst it is designed hopefully to level the playing field in some of these operations so that particularly small and medium enterprises do not have their payments delayed, and therefore their cash flow delayed, there is a counterpoint.
This is something that I think will need to be watched very carefully. This could actually be something used by big business or big developers to whack small and medium enterprises in terms of cash flow as well. They could use it to actually inundate a small business with paperwork claiming payment and there would be a limited time to respond to that. I would be hopeful that that would not be the case and we will obviously need to watch it closely.
That is why we believe bringing the review forward will be important. The intent is very good. We have seen it work in other jurisdictions, but it is not without fault. That is, I suppose, the flip side that we have been hearing from industry. I have spoken to all of the major industry groups and also to a lot of individual business owners. Whilst many of them have been positive, there have been some of those residual concerns, and some of that complexity has been expressed to us. I put those concerns on the record on behalf of business groups and some individual businesses.
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