NECA Victoria has welcomed the Victorian Parliament’s Legislative Assembly Environment and Planning Committee’s report into the non-payment of subcontractors released earlier this week.

The report, titled Employers and contractors who refuse to pay their subcontractors for completed works, is in response to a legislative inquiry announced in March 2023.

The state of Victoria has experienced some of the worst builder collapses in the country and yet its outdated Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002 is providing little to no protection for subcontractors.

In an effort to address this disparity, the report puts forward several findings and recommendations broadly grouped into the following priority areas:

• Payment practices in the construction industry
• Strengthening the statutory right to claim payment
• Improving the adjudication of payment disputes
• Insolvency in the construction sector.

The report to the Victorian State Government stated that consideration should be given to the recommendations outlined in the 2017 Review of Security of Payment laws: Building trust and harmony as written by John Murray AM, including the introduction of cascading deemed statutory trusts.