Post by Edward Sheppard

As many on LinkedIn have posted about, the QBCC Adjudication Registry appears to have begun the practice of publishing only the coversheets of adjudicators' decisions. With respect, there may be room for debate about whether that approach is consistent with the BIF Act. One of the Registrar's functions is to 'publish records of decisions by adjudicators' (BIF Act s 154(2)(e)). What constitutes a record of a decision should at least be informed by s 88(5), which requires that a 'decision' include written reasons, unless the parties have asked the adjudicator not to provide them.  If Parliament intended the Registrar to publish summaries of adjudication outcomes in lieu of the actual decisions, then s 154(2)(e) could easily have required the publication of adjudication certificates instead. The public availability of adjudicators' decisions, including reasons, is valuable for construction lawyers and those in the industry.  That's why I built Sopal, and the fact that it has over 90 user accounts demonstrates the interest.  It would be unfortunate if new decisions can no longer be accessed despite there being no change to the legislation. In any case, it looks like full decisions before mid-June 2026 will remain accessible. Those decisions continue to be text-searchable at sopal.com.au/search.