Under the Radar What’s New in the Law continues
Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW) In response to the perceived construction crisis in NSW, the State government has passed new laws to restore public confidence in the building industry and regulate the design and construction of new buildings. The Act aims at improving the quality and compliance of construction work in NSW. Arguably the most significant change is the introduction of a non-delegable and retroactive statutory duty of care.
Westpac Settles AUSTRAC Money Laundering Case with $1.3 Billion Fine In November 2019, AUSTRAC launched a Federal Court action accusing Westpac of breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws more than 23 million occurrences. These allegations included allowing customers to transfer money to the Philippines in a manner consistent with child exploitation. Westpac formally admitted to these claims in May 2020, opening the way to a settlement and agreed to settle by paying a record $1.3 billion penalty. It is one of the most substantial penalties in Australia corporate history and almost double the previous record paid by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for 54,000 money laundering breaches in 2017.
8 | The Brief
Is Australia’s Freedom of Information System in Need of Reform? Julian Favero
A
ustralia’s Freedom of Information (‘FOI’) regime was established to enable citizens to access documents that are held by Australian Government ministers and agencies. These include documents that contain personal information, policy-making documents and administrative decision-making documents. This system is regulated by the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982 (‘FOI Act’), which recognises that information held by government departments should be made available to the public on request and that access should be provided in a timely and cost-effective manner. The FOI Act stipulates that FOI requests must be processed within 30 days from the date of lodgement. As of December 2019, FOI refusals are at a record high of 17%, with access to information taking several months to be granted. The issue with delayed access is that several documents are, in effect, outdated by the time they are released. Currently, the Department of Home Affairs receives more FOI requests than any other government department. In the financial year ending June 2019, the Department received a total of 15,220 requests of which 1,990 failed to be processed within the statutory timeframe. The high delays in recent years have been attributed to staffing cuts across several government departments in FOI teams over the past few years. For example, the Department of Social Services has had six FOI staff members cut since 2014-15, while the Australian Taxation Office has wiped out fifteen FOI roles since 2014. It is well established that a key factor contributing to the inability of several government departments to meet
Ed.3 2020
