Victoria just stuck their hand in the Too Hard Basket.

For the last two decades, Victoria has been the odd one out in the Security of Payment world.

While NSW and Queensland allowed contractors to throw almost anything into an adjudication (including complex delay damages and disruption costs) Victoria had a unique safety valve called ‘Excluded Amounts’.

It meant that if a claim was too complex, too messy, or related to time costs and damages, it was generally blocked from the rapid adjudication process. It was roundly and soundly consigned to the ‘Too Hard Basket’. Principals loved it because it kept those hairy, scary claims locked up in court process (which takes years) rather than adjudication (which takes weeks).

Well, the safety valve has just been vented.

With the passing of the Building Legislation Amendment (Fairer Payments on Jobsites and Other Matters) Act, Victoria has officially abolished the "Excluded Amounts" regime.

The Safe Space is gone

This is the single biggest shift in Victorian construction law since 2002.

By deleting the concept of Excluded Amounts, the Act now opens the door for Claimants to include:

• Time-related costs: yes, you can now adjudicate delay damages.

• Latent Conditions: those messy ‘rock v sand’ arguments are now fair game.

• Disputed Variations: previously, if disputed variations exceeded 10% of the contract sum, they were often blocked. Now? Bring ‘em on.

• Damages: Claims for breach of contract are now on the table.

The Commercial Reality Check

If you work across borders (like us), you know that the East Coast Model (NSW/QLD) is a brutal environment for Respondents. Victoria is about to get a taste of that medicine.

Here is the new reality for 2026:

1. Adjudications will get heavy: we aren't just talking about unpaid invoices for concrete anymore. We’re talking about 500-page expert reports on critical path delays being dropped on your desk with a 10 day response deadline.

2. Payment Schedules must be bulletproof: the reforms also ban New Reasons. If you don't raise your defence in the Payment Schedule, you can't raise it in the Adjudication. You can no longer rely on a jurisdictional argument that "this is an excluded amount" to save you. You’ll have to fight the claim on its merits, immediately.

3. The Ambush Risk: while the Act introduces a Christmas blackout period (finally), the ability to bundle up millions of dollars in delay costs into a single payment claim means the ‘ambush’ payment claim is now a nuclear weapon in Victoria.

To our Victorian friends: as Axel Rose famously put it, Welcome to the Jungle.

For Contractors, this is a massive win. It gives you the leverage to force a commercial outcome on delay claims without spending $200k on Supreme Court pleadings. But be warned: just because you can claim it, doesn't mean you will win. Adjudicators need evidence, not vibes.

For Principals and Head Contractors, the training wheels are off. If your contract administration team is used to ignoring delay notices because "they can't adjudicate it anyway," you’re about to get a very expensive wake up call.

References

• Baker McKenzie: Changes to the Security of Payment Act in Victoria (Excluded Amounts Removal)

• MinterEllison: Building Legislation Amendment (Fairer Payments) Act Overview

• Holding Redlich: A major shake up of the Victorian security of payment regime