Master Builders Australia has strongly backed moves to implement a Director Identification Number (‘DIN’) regime into law.
First canvassed in the 2001 Cole Royal Commission report, the introduction of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Registries Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2019 into the Parliament this week means a DIN is finally one step closer.
The proposed DIN will see company directors assigned a unique number, allowing regulators, agencies and government departments to better track and identify unfair commercial conduct and enforce existing laws far more effectively and efficiently.
Denita Wawn, CEO of Master Builders Australia said: “We have long supported a DIN as a way to help government agencies and regulators enforce existing laws far more effectively while avoiding the need for higher levels of red tape and regulation.”
“The DIN will help reduce the incidence of phoenix activity and other types of capricious commercial conduct that undermines and hurts the overwhelming majority of businesses who do the right thing,” she said.
“We hope that the DIN will help unshackle the regulators – meaning they can better identify and prosecute the offenders,” Denita Wawn said.
Ms Wawn noted that the building and construction industry had been worried that the DIN had gone MIA and credited the ALP for keeping the initiative on the radar,” she said.
“We are grateful for the efforts of Hon Brendan O’Connor MP – Shadow Minister for Employment and Industry, Stephen Jones MP – Shadow Assistant Treasurer, and Dr Andrew Leigh MP for keeping the DIN front and centre of the policy debate,” Denita Wawn said.
“Labor was quick to recognise the DIN and adopt it as policy, and we recognise their efforts in working with the Assistant Treasurer, Hon Michael Sukkar MP to ensure that the Government took action,” she said.
“The DIN will be a key element in weeding out those people who do the wrong thing while ensuring a fairer environment for the 99.9 per cent of people who do the right thing, and we look forward to it becoming law,” Denita Wawn said.
