Elias v Commissioner for Fair Trading [2021] NSWCATAD 111

Civil and Administrative Tribunal New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Elias v Commissioner for Fair Trading [2021] NSWCATAD 111 Hearing dates: 11 January 2021 Date of orders: 30 April 2021 Decision date: 30 April 2021 Jurisdiction: Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division Before: K Ransome, Senior Member Decision: The decision under review is affirmed. Catchwords: ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW – Home Building – Application for contractor licence – Qualification and experience requirements set out in an instrument issued by the respondent – Whether the applicant meets the terms of the instrument, read as a policy – Whether the Tribunal is satisfied that the applicant has the requisite experience to be a builder – whether supervised in the doing of the work – remuneration requirement Legislation Cited: Administrative Decisions Review Act 1997 Home Building Act 1989 Cases Cited: Limberis v Commissioner for Fair Trading [2017] NSWCATOD 128 Whitehouse v Commissioner for Fair Trading [2017] NSWCATOD 108 Category: Principal judgment Parties: Simon Elias (Applicant) Commissioner for Fair Trading (Respondent) Representation: Applicant(Self-Represented) Department of Customer Service (Respondent) File Number(s): 2020/00210223

REASONS FOR DECISION 1. Simon Elias applied for an individual contractor licence in the category of general building work. At the time he made the application for the licence Mr Elias was a director of a company, AKL Junior Pty Ltd, which held a building licence. The company was required to have a nominated qualified supervisor in order to hold a licence. The reason Mr Elias applied for the licence was so that he could do building work in his own right without the need to have a nominated qualified supervisor. 2. The Commissioner for Fair Trading refused that application because the Commissioner was not satisfied that Mr Elias had demonstrated that he had the relevant experience to be granted the licence. That is, that he had a minimum of two years relevant industry experience in a wide range of building construction work. Mr Elias has sought review of that decision. 3. In passing, I note that the licence of AKL Junior Pty Ltd was cancelled in June 2020 as the company had no nominated supervisor. Mr Elias is currently employed with CPK Building Group as a project manager.