In 2017, John Murray handed down a report to the Turnbull Federal Government that provided a ‘best practice’ model for a harmonised Security of Payment Act.

The Turnbull Government was voted out before any response could be made. No response was ever made.

Until now.

In 2025, the Albanese Government has decided to respond. They did so before the election no doubt to cover the base of ‘responding to the construction industry’. The response is a non-event.

The purpose of the Murray report was to offer government a version of the Act that either all states could adopt for the sake of consistency, or a version that could be adopted if the SOP Act was made federal legislation. The purpose of was stated as:

The purpose of the review was to identify legislative best practice, with a view to improving consistency in security of payment legislation and the level of protection afforded to construction industry subcontractors to ensure they obtain payment for work they have completed or for goods and services they have supplied. The review was required to report back by 31 December 2017 and include a range of recommendations to be considered by government.

Murray came back with 86 recommendations.

In his covering letter to the then Minister [for Small Business] Craig Laundy, Mr Murray said in part;

It is my belief that should these recommendations be accepted and implemented consistently across all states and territories, they will greatly improve the level of protection afforded to construction industry subcontractors and ensure that they obtain prompt payment for work they have completed. To that end, I encourage the Australian Government to work closely with its state and territory counterparts to deliver what is widely considered within the industry to be a long overdue process of essential national reform of security of payment legislation.

Now it is inherent in the approach of the entire report that ultimately, the Federal Government will actually DO SOMETHING as a result of the report. After all, the report was commissioned by the Federal Government.

But this Government will do nothing.

In true government style, the Albanese Government response was [amazingly] to comment on only Recommendation 86 because that is the only one that asks anything of the Federal Government. Recommendation 86 says;

The Australian Government should take a lead role in working with the states and territories and key industry stakeholders towards the establishment of a nationally consistent deemed statutory trust model. The establishment and implementation of such a model should be accompanied by a program of industry-wide education and training.

In response the Government said it will not explore the statutory trust model at all and will leave any improvement to the various state Acts, to the states themselves. The Government Response says:

This response does not address each recommendation separately.

1. Significant time has passed since the release of the Murray Review, marked by changing economic conditions for construction businesses and changes to state and territory security of payment legislation.
2. The Commonwealth may have a more limited legislative capacity over the full scope of security of payment laws relative to the states and territories. Given this, the states and territories have a key role to play to address current issues by legislating on security of payment matters in their own jurisdictions.

This response focuses on practical policy interventions to deliver the same outcomes envisaged in the Murray Review and considers the post-Murray Review shifts in conditions in the construction sector, legislative reforms made by states and territories in response to the Review and the Government’s broader economic reforms.

Essentially the Government is claiming that it cannot address the Murray Report in detail because somehow external conditions and the State Acts have changed over the last 8 years. So what? Nothing in the recommendations is prevented by any event over the last 8 years. Here, the onus is simply tossed back to the states! It claims to have ‘limited legislative capacity’. What Murray was asking for was for the Federal Government to work with the states to get to a nationally consistent model for the Act.

But this is clearly not on the cards. Instead, the rest of the response lists things the Government says it is doing to improve the industry. But none of them have anything to do with Security of Payment. Instead, the Government says it will focus on “…practical policy interventions to deliver the same outcomes envisaged in the Murray Review…”

It makes no sense. Only implementation of the recommendations can deliver the review’s outcomes.

Instead, the report talks about addressing unfair contract terms, unfair trading practices, supporting e-Invoicing, reforming insolvency laws, and combatting phoenixing activity,

The point of the report was to provide a basis for the Federal and State government to work together to get to a single version of the Act.  It suggests co-operation; not enforced legislation.

The government says under the title ‘Government Actions taken to Date’:

The Government has engaged collaboratively with states and territories and the building and construction industry on security of payment laws through two key forums: the Building Ministers’ Meeting (BMM) and the NCIF. In these forums, the Government facilitates and leads discussion on reforms to security of payment laws and relevant actions.

These forums occurred before the Murray report was considered. And now there seems no intention to get the Murray Report front and centre in any of these forums! Isn’t that the entire point?

So here we are. Eight years ago, the Murray Report suggested a way for the entire country to work under a consistent and simplified Security of Payment model.

It was ignored then. It is being ignored now.

The Murray Report is 382 pages. The Federal Government Response… 24 pages.

Kinda says it all really.

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