Compliance & Regulatory Support

Workplace Health and Safety

The COVID pandemic has underscored the importance of effective workplace health and safety (WHS) strategies. To assist members in complying with their WHS obligations, ASIAL continues to partner with Integrum Management Systems to provide a robust online solution designed specifically for the security sector, allowing frontline staff to capture data and trigger workflows with a clear audit trail. Subscribed members have online access to safety management documentation eliminating paper-based records. The Employee Training and Licence registers ensures that all staff possess the required training, including induction training, to perform their respective work duties and administrators can record current security licences and registrations with expiry date reminders. This feature is of utmost importance to the security industry to ensure compliance on work sites and important when responding to requests for tender. Incident reporting to record all accidents, incidents and near miss incidents is another important feature. Automatic risk calculation allows quick decisions to be made on site. Hazard and Risk Assessments forms allow for monitoring of incidents and future preventions. The ASIAL SWMS program is an affordable WHS system tailored to the Security Industry that has been designed to meet the requirements of Australian Standard 4801 and Safety Standard ISO45001.

Compliance and Regulation

Compliance is a key priority in supporting and maintaining security operations. It is much more than just the basic rules about taxes, accounting and safety at work laws. Security operations are required to comply with a large and increasingly complex set of laws that have a significant impact on security operations. Security licensing, WH&S, insurance, modern slavery, labour hire, portable long service, and wage theft legislation are further complicated by jurisdictional variations. ASIAL members continue to take advantage of the many services on offer, including support with business forms, standard operating procedures, business plans and direct representation with regulators. The risks of non-compliance are costly, not just with regards to a monetary penalty, but criminal responsibility and direct impact on business owners, managers and staff. Organisations appropriately seek professional advice, external to ASIAL, in business structures, choice of entities, and various models of compliance to manage and minimise risk, taxation and ownership. The past year has highlighted that the specifics of security licensing are not always well understood, or a priority of some accounting and legal practitioners providing advice to security providers in realigning business structures or new entrants to the security industry. Security licensing generally relates to the ABN and the entity and not multiple or Group entities. Several jurisdictions specifically reject Trust applications with security regulators placing priority on the identification of business ownership, legal responsibility, and management responsibility. ASIAL continues to work with members to ensure their compliance with security business licensing and ensure their business structures comply with security licensing requirements.

The ongoing review of the Victorian Private Security Act, although delayed by the impact of the COVID pandemic and the Inquiry into the Victorian hotel quarantine program, will see a significant increase in compliance requirements enforced by legislation. It is anticipated that the Victorian legislation will have similarities with the NSW legislation with regards to compliance. It is also anticipated that the use and abuse of individual ABN holders will be addressed. ASIAL continues to advocate for a nationally consistent approach to security industry licensing and for the reduction of unnecessary regulatory red tape. Throughout the year ASIAL has advocated for the introduction of Automatic Mutual Recognition to allow greater mobility of individual security licence holders. Disappointingly, some jurisdictions have flagged their intention to seek exemptions from Automatic Mutual Recognition. ASIAL will continue to push for national consistency in security licensing requirements to address vulnerabilities that currently exist between jurisdictions, such as variations in probity, individual eligibility requirements, business suitability, fingerprinting, training, the use of criminal intelligence and the lack of a national security licence register. Electronics - ASIAL has continued to engage with government and industry providing advice. We continue to support members through our involvement on influential committees and industry councils. Standards – through its participation on Australian Standards and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) committees, ASIAL plays a key role in standards development for the security industry. The electronics committee EL-031 completed the draft proposal AS/NZS 2201.2 Monitoring Centres. The Draft standard for Monitoring Centres was released for Industry and public comment to Australian Standards in June 2021. ASIAL’s General Manager, John Fleming is the chair of EL-031. Working with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as a participating member IEC/TC79/WG13 focused on the development of standards for Building Intercom Systems IEC62820 part 1-1 and IEC 62820-1-2. Training - Artibus Innovation has been commissioned by the Australian government to support the Industry Reference Committees (IRCs) for the Construction and Property Services industry. The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) includes representatives from employers, industry, RTOs and regulators. ASIAL is a committee member of the Property IRC and is tasked with reviewing and developing vocational education and training for the security Industry. Projects have focused on occupational analysis as a basis for rebuilding the qualification and unit structure to align with current and emerging work practices and to support a more consistent regulatory approach. National Broadband Network – the Association continued to engage with the NBN Co to provide information for members on the deployment of the National Broadband Network (nbn). The nbn working with approved service providers will replace the existing landline phone and internet services in Australia, this is scheduled to be finalised in 2021. It is vitally important that stakeholders in the migration of back to base security and medical alarms be informed about the nbn developments and communicate with their customers to offer solutions that maintain the security systems integrity. No matter which type of technology is used to deliver the nbn, it is crucial that home and office wiring has been well planned. ASIAL continues to provide information to members and advocate that security installation work must be carried out by a licenced security technician that holds an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) cablers registration card with the appropriate cabling competencies. Monitoring Centre Certification –ASIAL continues to operate the highly respected monitoring centre certification program in accordance with Australian Standard AS2201.2 Monitoring Centres. ASIAL also provides certification for redundant Monitoring Centres and Class 5 certification. The ASIAL scheme seeks to provide customers with the reassurance that the standards applied at a monitoring centre are independently audited on a regular basis.

ASIAL Cabling Registry

Acting on behalf of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) ASIAL continues to provide cablers with advice and support to comply with cabling registration requirements. The ACMA is responsible for setting out the regulatory requirements for registration and installation practices of cablers. ASIAL’s cabling registry has been kept busy responding to cablers who wish to update their competencies and questioning how they should go about gaining competencies to continue legally working in the industry. Registered Training Organisations have responded to the changes, offering courses to upgrade from restricted to Open registration and gain specialised cabling competencies, Fibre, Structured and Co-axial. These qualifications have been deemed essential for the development of a skilled labour force that can work on IP technologies and the National Broadband Network. During the 2020/2021 financial year, cabling registrations grew by 173, up from 6,309 in 2019/2020, to reach 6,482 active registrations on 30 June 2021. The majority of registrants (5970) opted to gain ‘Open’ registration as opposed to the limited ‘Restricted’ cabling registration (502), with the remaining balance (10) being for ‘Lift’ work. ASIAL engages with the ACMA and other cabling registrars to promote ongoing compliance and training in this sector. The registered cablers website is growing in the number of views and continues to provide vital information to industry and consumers about what to do in preparing for the nbn. After extensive communication with the ACMA and the nbn, both organisations are actively promoting the website as the place to go for unbiased information on the nbn and smart cabling. The results from ACMAs review of the regulation of telecommunications customer cabling regulation concluded that ACMA will continue focusing on the regulation of cabling work as performed by cabling providers. This response was based on the response feedback that an unregulated market would lead to unacceptable public safety risks.