In Australia, there are at least 12 pieces of legislation which governs the manner in which you undertake your business.
This legislation includes:
- Work, Health and Safety Law
- Industrial Relations Law
- Company Law
- Taxation Law
- Privacy Law
- Australian Consumer Law
- Fair Trading Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- Environmental Law
- Local Government Law
- Tenancy Law
- Anti-Discrimination Law
This comprehensive library of legislation, however, does not consider industry-specific legislation where most companies will add an additional ten items of legislation of which you must comply.
This includes:
- Licensing
- Professional Standards Law
- Codes of Practice
- Industry-Specific Legislation
- Australian Standards
It is within this legislative framework company’s should aim to interpret which compliance obligations impose the harshest sanctions and ensure legislation which poses the greatest risk, is given the highest priority when it comes to designing your compliance program.
Unfortunately in most company’s however, there is an invisible threshold when it comes to addressing compliance obligations through failure to understand the sanctions, which can be imposed under the separate items of law relating to your business.
For example, I have a number of NSW Registered Club clients, who supervise the door of their venues to ensure they identify customers before admitting them to their club, to ensure they qualify for entry under the NSW Registered Clubs Act. The maximum penalty should a customer enter the club and not qualify for entry is ten penalty units or a $1,100.00 fine.
Another obligation of NSW Registered Clubs is to ensure certain signs are displayed in their club as a requirement of the Registered Clubs Act, Liquor Act and Gaming Machines Act. An example of this is should a licensed club not have problem gambling contact cards at the end of each bank of poker machines, such circumstances have a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units or a $5,500.00 fine. That is five times the penalty of customers qualifying for entry.
On this basis, a balanced compliance program would see a greater emphasis on ensuring gaming signs are displayed through daily auditing over qualifying customers for entry.
When you add generic legislation such as harmonised Work, Health and Safety Law, the penalty for a category three offence, which does not require a worker to be injured but rather simply failing to execute a duty you have under the Act (eg. assessing risk), the maximum penalty for a corporation is a staggering $500,000.00 and double jeopardy for company officers or individuals with responsibilities under this legislation.
It is important to know the penalties which apply when implementing a balanced compliance program, which best addresses the risk to your business of non-compliance. This should form an integral part of the strategic management of your business.
There will be plenty of companies out there who will offer you compliance programs and software systems, with little understanding of the ecosystems of which your company operates, which in my opinion are merely clever marketing similar to the ab rocker exercise machines for ‘rock hard abs’.
The legislation is not written for a set and forget and requires great diligence when designing a balanced compliance program and ensuring you adequately define the roles and responsibilities of those you rely on to implement.
