Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 equips the tribunal with the tools it needs to ensure that it can continue to provide a fair, quick and efficient merits review. In particular, the bill expands the tribunal's ability to make decisions based on written materials without holding an oral hearing. Oral hearings are time and resource intensive. The bill recognises that a one-size-fits-all approach that requires oral hearings be conducted in all matters is unnecessarily rigid.

The bill would enhance the tribunal's powers and procedures to ensure that review procedures are efficient and proportionate to the circumstances of the case. The bill would amend the Migration Act 1958 to require the tribunal to make decisions without conducting an oral hearing in reviews of certain migration decisions—specifically student visa refusals. This aims to address the significant surge in applications for review of student visa refusal decisions experienced by the tribunal since early 2024. These reviews will be subject to a new review procedure conducted entirely on the basis of written materials. Applicants would be given the opportunity to present their case in writing and present information to the tribunal in support of their case. This procedure could be expanded by regulation to include decisions in relation to other temporary visa types but not protection visas or permanent visas.

The bill would also amend the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 to enable the tribunal to dispense with an oral hearing if it appears that the issues can be adequately determined in the absence of the parties and it would be reasonable in the circumstances to make a decision without holding a hearing. This new discretion will ensure that simple matters and straightforward issues can be determined as efficiently as possible while still providing a fair and just review. The tribunal would be required to consult the parties about this and take their submissions into account. This bill reflects the ongoing commitment of the government to ensuring the tribunal is able to make decisions in an efficient and timely manner while ensuring applicants have a meaningful opportunity to present their case to the tribunal.

I thank all members who have made a contribution to this debate, especially for bringing to light some of the experiences of their own constituents and circumstances that are very much about the human experience with the tribunal system. I was pleased to hear some of the contributions from the members for Sturt and Makin, who again highlighted the fact that there needs to be a balancing between the efficiency of the tribunal system and ensuring that access to justice is served. It is through consultation with impacted parties, the tribunal itself and relevant stakeholders that we have arrived at this position of being able to bring forward proposals to make the ART much more responsive and to ensure that we address those backlogs where they are occurring. Ultimately that is in the interests of all our constituents as well as of the rule of law and access to justice overall. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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