Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to speak on the Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and to follow the member for Sturt, who's just given a very good argument and a clear explanation of why this legislation is so important. Some 50 years ago, in 1975, in introducing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Bill, the then Attorney-General Kep Enderby, stated:

… the Tribunal is not to be an ordinary court, but neither is it to be an appendage of government departments. The Tribunal is to be regarded as machinery provided by Parliament for adjudication rather than as part of the machinery of departmental administration. Nothing less than a tribunal of full judicial status would be satisfactory for these purposes.

He went on:

The tribunal is not to be bound by the rules of evidence but is empowered to inform itself in any way it sees fit.

He then ends his speech with:

It will provide an opportunity to build up a significant body of administrative law and practice of general application as well as providing the machinery to ensure that persons are dealt with fairly and properly in their relationships with government.

Those opening comments, I believe, very well describe the purpose and intent of the then Administrative Appeals Tribunal and its successor, the Administrative Review Tribunal, which is the legislation that we are now dealing with. And albeit the name has changed, it is my view that the purpose and intent of the tribunal never did.

Since 1975, when the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was established, society and the way it functions has changed markedly. Laws, regulations and processes have changed. Government administrative processes have changed as well. Society has changed. Community expectations and demands have changed. So where a grievance arises, the community must have confidence in the review process that is currently available to them. That is what this legislation seeks to do. It's a legislation that looks at what has happened in the past 50 years and seeks to address any flaws in that legislation, and effectively says, 'How can we do things better?' I believe this legislation will in fact lead us down the path where we will be doing things better.

Any review process must be speedy, because for people who have lodged a review of their case with the department—and we've already heard that there are some 400 pieces of legislation under which people might challenge a decision—the delays can be both traumatic and even life-changing, as other speakers have quite rightly pointed out. Indeed, for people waiting for a decision, every day can seem like eternity, adding to stress whilst at the same time putting their lives on hold.

With respect to that, I'm sure other members of this place would have had similar experiences as me within my office in Makin. We regularly see people come into the office who have lodged an appeal, because they want to challenge a decision, and have been waiting months and months for that appeal to be heard. In those intervening months, their lives are effectively put on hold or severely disrupted in a way that certainly causes them severe distress and anxiety. It's important that we have a process that deals with their applications as efficiently as possible.

It's just as important that the outcome must be fair and just, which is why the Administrative Review Tribunal is not bound by normal legal framework. It is for that very reason. In fact, it has often been said that law and justice are not always the same. Indeed, a court is a place where the primary responsibility is to administer and apply law. The ART has, I believe, a slightly different role in that it's a process that seeks to deliver justice, common sense and fairness that might not otherwise be found when you simply apply law. In other words, it's a process where one would say it delivers a fair go. Sounds simple, but regrettably that has not always been the case. Too often decisions are made by ministers, their delegates or departmental officers who use their personal judgement and their analysis and sometimes, regrettably, their bias in reaching the decisions they make. We saw that with the robodebt debacle, where a flawed computer-generated process was used to burden people with wrongful debts. As everyone in this House knows, the consequences of the robodebt debacle were devastating for so many people. It's the role of the ART to ensure that the community can have confidence in whatever processes we put in place, from here going forward.

Decisions under this new arrangement can now be made on the basis of written materials, without holding an oral hearing. This is particularly with respect to student visa cases, but I understand there is also flexibility for that to be extended in the future. The point I want to make is based on my experience in the Makin electorate. Many people have come in and said, 'Yes, we will lodge an application for a hearing to be held, but we don't feel confident to front up to the people that are going to sit there and make the decision.' Because they don't know the laws or they don't speak the language well—whatever the case is—they feel somewhat nervous about appearing before a tribunal, which they envisage as being a court setting. This new arrangements means that, in their own quiet time, they will be able to write things down and put together a submission, perhaps with the help of people who are willing to assist them, and then submit it so it can form part of the hearing. This is incredibly important, and it's an improvement on the current process, whereby they would otherwise have to go in themselves and appear.

This process will be much more streamlined. It will enable more cases to be heard, and that in turn will shorten the waiting times that people are currently experiencing with respect to their appeal applications. As I said a moment ago, being able to present their case in the quietness of their own home will certainly save people the emotional stress they might feel when appearing before a quasi-judicial body. Simultaneously, timely decision-making will prevent non-genuine visa applicants from using the Administrative Review Tribunal as a delaying tactic, as the member for Sturt alluded to in her contribution a few moments ago. I have no doubt that some of the applications for review are lodged simply to delay a final decision being made. That not only ties up the tribunal's time and resources and puts people in the waiting queue for even longer, but it's also a costly process for taxpayers. It is often used simply as a delaying tactic so that someone can continue to do whatever it is they are appealing against. Again, a streamlined process which reduces the time for an application to be heard will hopefully eliminate some of that as well.

Since 2024 we've seen a surge in student visa refusals. I don't know how many of those reviews end up in a decision being overturned. In fact, I say this with respect to all applications that go before the ART. How many of them successfully overturn the original decision? It would be an interesting study to carry out, and it would be important to know those statistics. Without knowing those statistics, it seems to me that the increase in the number of student applications warrants specific focus on those applications. This legislation does that, because it allows the process to be streamlined through applications being heard without the person appearing in person. It's a process which I believe will go a long way towards fixing up the current problem, which is the long waiting list.

There are other matters in this legislation that others have spoken of which I won't go into detail about. I see the minister is in the chamber right now, and she probably wants to sum up. In a nutshell, this is simply an improvement that is warranted and arises because, as things change, we need to change the laws of the land to ensure that they are still relevant and applicable to society today. I commend the legislation to the House.

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