Governance Lawyers
The Muscat Tanzer team have extensive experience assisting public and private sector clients with governance advice, drafting policies, procedures, guidelines and template documents, assisting with complaints management and educating clients on governance and project matters.
Our expertise
- Reviewing and drafting internal and external policies and procedures for procurement, sustainability, conflict of interest, fraud and corruption control, risk management, privacy, right to information, asset disposal and governance which incorporate ESG principles to ensure compliance with relevant legislation and policy and best practice.
- Drafting Councillor and Council Officer codes of conduct.
- Assisting clients with complaints management, including complaints made by individuals and authorities against mayors and councillors, and assisting with corruption body investigations.
- Assisting with right to information requests.
- Drafting procurement documentation, including evaluation criteria and methodologies which require consideration and assessment of environmental and social impacts and sustainability.
- Drafting bespoke contracts and contract suites which ensure compliance with relevant legislation and policy and ensure best practice with respect to environmental and social impacts and sustainability.
- Drafting risk matrices for a variety of internal uses and assisting clients with training on how to use those risk matrices, including how to incorporate risk management into procurement and contract documents, processes and administration.
- Assisting clients to deliver cutting edge renewable energy and waste projects which produce positive ESG outcomes.
- Providing advice on the implementation of best practice governance processes to ensure that these processes become a natural daily practice.
Environment, Social & Governance (ESG)
Environment, social and governance, also known as ESG, are three key pillars that are becoming more and relevant to the internal systems and process within both governments and private entities. Having assisted both government and private clients, we are conscious of how environmental and social impacts are becoming increasingly examined by the public. Now more than ever, governments and private entities must ensure they are operating and producing outcomes that continuously align with the expectations of the community, policy and legislation. Given our knowledge and experience in the ESG space, we have the expertise to tailor internal systems and processes to ensure compliance and best practice whilst still achieving value for money outcomes.
Project Highlights
Local Government Local Laws Amendment
We act for a local government in the review and amendment of their local laws. Additionally, our responsibilities have included preparing the relevant amending instruments to ensure the proposed amendments are accurately documented, align with our client’s objectives and are compliant with applicable legislative and regulatory requirements.
Local Government-wide Policy Review and Update Projects
Paul Muscat, Craig Tanzer and team were engaged by two separate local governments to complete a review and update of all council-wide policies, procedures and guidelines including but not limited to procurement frameworks, risk management frameworks, information privacy and right to information, fraud and corruption control frameworks and delegations’ frameworks. We also implemented compliance registers and programs to ensure ongoing compliance with obligations and best practice. As part of this process, we implemented comprehensive complaints management and public interest disclosure procedures based upon past learnings from those councils and recommendations from various regulatory bodies. We also implemented processes for privacy and right to information requests to reduce the likelihood of complaints in future. Additionally, we drafted various conduct documents, such as Councillor and Staff Codes of Conduct where we included expectations for conduct in relation to fraud and corruption control, human rights and discrimination.
Right to Information Advice
Paul Muscat, Craig Tanzer and team acted as legal and probity advisers to a local government in relation to applications made by members of the public under the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld) for retrieval of local government and/or internal information and decisions relating to the $1.3 billion dollar waterfront development located in a Priority Development Area. We achieved a successful result for our client with the Commissioner affirming the confidentiality of expert reports related to the development, recognising them as exempt under the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld) due to contractual and equitable obligations of confidence.
Regulatory Body Investigations
We have acted for numerous local governments and government-owned corporations in relation to investigations by regulatory bodies into the conduct of those entities, reviewing and drafting submissions and providing legal counsel to our clients throughout these investigations. We also subsequently updated our client’s policies, procedures and guidelines with recommendations from those regulatory bodies and generally to ensure compliance and best practice.
Various local governments – process documents
Our team has significant experience in local government related policy. We understand that in government, compliance requirements can easily cause inefficiencies if not implemented correctly. With this understanding and our experience, we regularly advise government on improvements to their operational policies and procedures, and design and implement user-friendly regulatory compliance systems that enable stakeholders to manage risk, ensure compliance with obligations, evidence how that compliance has been achieved and effectively communicate outcomes.
