Earlier this year, the Queensland Building and Construction Commission announced that chapters 3, 4 and 5 of the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) ("BIFA"), namely the chapters of BIFA that relate to statutory progress payments (commonly referred to as BCIPA) and subcontractors' charges, would commence on 1 July 2018.

The Department of Housing and Public Works ("Department") has now announced that chapters 3, 4 and 5 of BIFA will not commence until 17 December 2018. Until chapters 3, 4 and 5 of BIFA commence, statutory progress payments and subcontractors' charges will continue to be governed by the Building and Construction Industry Payments Act 2004 (Qld) and the Subcontractors' Charges Act 1974 (Qld) respectively. Have you missed what the changes will mean? If so, you can read about them here.

The announcement comes on the back of the appointment of the Building Industry Fairness Reforms Implementation and Evaluation Panel by the Department on 12 June 2018. The terms of reference applying to the panel include consideration of "the effectiveness of the government's (sic) implementation of the suite of building industry reforms [...] including the introduction of project bank accounts, improved provisions for progress payments and subcontractors' (sic) charges and changes to the adjudication registry". The terms of reference can be located here.

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