New South Wales Consolidated Acts

HOME BUILDING ACT 1989 - SECT 127

127 Power to obtain information

(1) In this section--

"authorised person" means--

(a) a person authorised in writing by the Secretary for the purposes of this section and holding a certificate issued by the Secretary as to that authority, or

(b) an investigator appointed under section 18 of the Fair Trading Act 1987 , or

(c) a person authorised in writing by the Authority for the purposes of this section and holding a certificate issued by the Authority as to that authority.

"relevant information" means information about--

(a) a possible offence against this Act or the regulations, or against another Act if the offence relates to specialist work, or

(b) a complaint under this Act, or

(c) an investigation by the Secretary into a matter that is or may be the subject of disciplinary proceedings under this Act, or

(d) an application for, or for the renewal or restoration of, a contractor licence or a supervisor or tradesperson certificate, or

(e) the financial solvency of an applicant for, or holder of, a contractor licence or of a supervisor or tradesperson certificate or a close associate of such an applicant or holder, or

(f) an application for a licence under Part 6C, or

(g) an investigation by the Authority into a matter that is or may be the subject of action against an insurer or provider of an alternative indemnity product under this Act or a licence under Part 6C.

(2) The Secretary or Authority may, by notice in writing served on a person, require the person--

(a) to give to an authorised person, in writing signed by the person (or, in the case of a body corporate, by a competent officer of the body corporate) and within the time and in the manner specified in the notice, any relevant information of which the person has knowledge, or

(b) to produce to an authorised person, in accordance with the notice, any document containing relevant information, or

(c) to appear before an authorised person at a time and place specified in the notice and then and there to give (either orally or in writing) relevant information or to answer any questions reasonably related to giving relevant information or producing documents containing such information.

(2A) Notice under this section may be served on a person--

(a) personally or by post, or

(b) by email to an email address specified by the person for the service of notices of that kind, or

(c) by any other method authorised by the regulations for the service of notices of that kind.

(3) An authorised person may inspect a document produced in response to such a notice and may make copies of, or take extracts or notes from, the document.

(4) A person must not--

(a) fail to comply with such a notice to the extent that the person is capable of complying with it, or

(b) in purported compliance with such a notice, knowingly give information or an answer to a question, or produce a document, that is false or misleading.

: Maximum penalty--1,000 penalty units in the case of a corporation and 200 penalty units in any other case.

(5) A person is not excused from giving information, answering questions or producing documents under this section on the ground that the information, answers or documents may tend to incriminate the person.

(6) Any information or document obtained from a person under this section is inadmissible against the person in criminal proceedings other than proceedings for an offence under this section.

(7) An authorised person exercising any function under this section must, if requested to do so, produce the certificate of authority issued to the authorised person to a person served with a notice under this section.

(8) For the purposes of section 25 of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 , an authorised person is not required to comply with section 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 or 19 of that Act in respect of the provision of relevant information under this section.