Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. At its heart, this bill is about something fairly simple: when government makes a decision that affects somebody's life, that person should have a fair chance—a fair way—to challenge it, and the decision should be reviewed by people who are qualified to do the job. The process should be independent, and it should work quickly enough that the final answer still means something when it arrives. That last point is important. As a former lawyer, I can confirm that there are few things the legal profession can do quite as effectively as turning a simple problem into a very long process. Sometimes that complexity is necessary. Sometimes it really is not. This bill is about knowing the difference.

The Administrative Review Tribunal reviews decisions made under more than 400 Commonwealth acts and legislative instruments. That includes decisions involving migration, veterans' entitlements, the NDIS, child support, workers compensation, taxation and security assessments. Those are serious decisions. For the person on the receiving end, they can affect where they live, the support they receive, the tax they pay or their ability to remain in Australia.

That is why administrative review is not some obscure legal process that only lawyers should care about. It is part of making government accountable. If government gets something wrong, there needs to be somewhere a person can go to say, 'Look at this again,' and, if the government keeps getting the same thing wrong, a functioning review system should help expose that too. That is good for the individual. That is also good for government. But, to have confidence in that system, people also need confidence in the institution doing the reviewing.

That brings us to why the Albanese Labor government established the Administrative Review Tribunal in the first place. The ART commenced in October 2024, replacing the old Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The new tribunal was built around transparent, merit based appointments, with additional members to deal with backlogs and better procedures. We did that because the old system had lost public confidence.

Under the former Liberal and National governments, the AAT had become something resembling a coalition retirement village. More than 80 former Liberal and National candidates, political associates and mates were appointed to the tribunal during their time in office. Losing an election should not be a selection criterion for a quasi-judicial appointment, yet for a while there it appeared to be remarkably helpful. Merits review became a coalition consolation prize. It was bad for the institution, it was bad for public confidence and, frankly, it was unfair to the many capable and independent people who were serving on the tribunal and doing their jobs properly. So Labor abolished the AAT and replaced it with a tribunal based on merit. Qualified people should be appointed because they are qualified. It should not be a revolutionary proposition, yet, after nine years of coalition government, apparently it required legislation.

The reforms are working. The ART is finalising more applications than its predecessors did in earlier years. But that does not mean the job is finished. A government should never introduce a reform, congratulate itself and assume the institution can then be left untouched forever. Good administration requires maintenance.

The ART is dealing with enormous pressure. By 31 May this year, the tribunal had received more than 77,000 applications during the reporting year. It's on-hand caseload had grown to more than 131,000 applications. The median time to finalise an application had increased from 45 weeks five years ago, and only 43 per cent of applications were being finalised within 12 months. Migration is a major part of that pressure. The Federal Circuit and Family Court is facing similar challenges. Migration accounted for two-thirds of filings in its general federal law jurisdiction in 2024-25, and more than 18,000 migration applications remained pending at the end of the reporting period. So there is a practical problem here: there are more applications, and there is a growing backlog.

If parliament can remove unnecessary administration without reducing fairness, then we should do it. And that is what this bill seeks to achieve. One change concerns written reasons. At present, the tribunal can explain its decisions orally, but in many reviews it must produce written reasons as well. This bill allows the tribunal in appropriate cases to give its decision and the reasons orally and provide written reasons if a party requests them. That sounds like a small amendment, but in practice, across tens of thousands of applications, it can free up a considerable amount of time. If the applicant understands the decision, accepts it and does not require written reasons, there is little value in requiring a tribunal member to spend hours producing a document nobody asked for. That time instead can be spent deciding another case.

But this is not a blanket rule. The bill specifically protects areas where written reasons can be especially important. Reviews involving social security, veterans entitlements, aged care and the NDIS will continue to require written reasons, and that is the right balance. These cases can involve vulnerable Australians, complicated evidence and significant consequences. And, in cases where oral reasons are permitted, a person can still ask for written reasons. So this is not about removing accountability; it is about not producing paperwork purely for the pleasure of producing paperwork.

As someone who spent years working as an electrician before becoming a lawyer, I've learnt the two professions take a slightly different view of paperwork. An electrician generally wants to know what the problem is and how they fix it. A lawyer may occasionally want to know where we can establish a working group to determine the problem first. I remain sympathetic to electricians. This bill takes that same practical approach elsewhere. Migration and protection review applications will be required to use an approved form. That means the tribunal gets the information it needs at the start, rather than staff spending time chasing basic details later. Again, this is fairly basic. If information is required to process an application, it makes sense for it to be asked for when the application is lodged.

The bill will also allow the president of the tribunal to authorise registrars to exercise some additional powers. That includes reinstating applications in appropriate circumstances and dismissing an application where there is no reasonable prospect of success. This power should not be misunderstood. It is not an invitation to dispose of difficult cases because they are inconvenient; the test is for whether there is no reasonable prospect of success. The explanatory material gives the example of an applicant who cannot objectively meet the visa criterion because the law requires them to be in Australia when the application is made and they are in fact outside of Australia. There is little public benefit in requiring a tribunal member to conduct a full hearing simply to discover the objective fact already capable of determining the application. There are also safeguards. The president can impose conditions on a registrar's authority, and an application dismissed in error can be reinstated.

I recognise concerns have been raised that registrars should not drift into making substantive decisions that properly belong to tribunal members, and that is a legitimate issue for parliament to scrutinise. The distinction between efficient case management and merit decision-making needs to remain clear, but the answer cannot be to insist that every procedural step must always be performed by the most senior person available. A well-run legal institution should have appropriately qualified people exercising appropriately defined powers with review and safeguards where they are required. The bill also allows obvious errors in a registrar's decision or reason to be corrected by an authorised member. Again, that is another sensible provision. If someone writes '2025' when they plainly meant '2026', we should be able to fix it without recreating the battle of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. There is even a provision excluding the period from 24 December to 14 January when calculating certain deadlines for original decision-makers to provide documents. It may be one of the few propositions capable of securing complete agreement across Commonwealth bureaucracy. Very little is happening between Christmas Eve and the middle of January. We may as well legislate for that reality.

But the most significant reform in this bill concerns identity verification in migration cases. The bill creates a power to require applicants seeking review of prescribed migration or protection decisions to verify their identity. The requirement can apply both in the ART and in the Federal Circuit and Family Court. The detailed requirements, including when verification must occur, whether it can happen in person or virtually and what information must be provided, will be established through the regulations. Classes of applicants can also be exempted. But why do this? If someone is asking an Australian tribunal court to review a migration decision made about them, it is reasonable to establish that the person exists, that they are who they claim to be and that they actually know the application has been made. We know there is a cohort of applications made on behalf of people without their express knowledge or consent, and that undermines the system. Review rights exist to protect genuine applicants. They should not become a mechanism for third parties to lodge applications merely to extend the process. Identity verification creates an early point of active engagement. The applicant is effectively saying, 'Yes, this is me; yes, this is my application; and, yes, I want this review to continue.' That is hardly an unreasonable expectation. For ART proceedings, if an applicant who is required to verify their identity does not do so, the application must be dismissed. But that is not necessarily the end. A person who has had genuine reason for being unable to complete verification can seek reinstatement and explain what occurred. The tribunal can then decide whether another verification attempt should be required.

The Federal Circuit and Family Court operates differently. Because it is a chapter III court, exercising judicial power, the legislation preserves greater judicial discretion. A person who has failed to meet the identity requirement needs leave to continue. The court can extend the period for compliance. It can dispense with the requirement. It may dismiss the proceeding rather than being required to do so. And it can permit a dismissed proceeding to be reinstated. That distinction is deliberate. It respects the constitutional role of the court.

There have also been concerns raised about how identity verification could affect vulnerable people, including people who are stateless or have had difficulty obtaining identity documents. Those concerns deserve proper consideration. That is one reason the legislation allows exemptions to be created and flexibility in how verification occurs. It can be conducted virtually as well as in person, and, importantly, the regulations themselves remain subject to a parliamentary scrutiny and disallowance. So parliament retains the ability to intervene if the rules do not operate as intended.

The objective here is not to create another obstacle for genuine applicants; it is the opposite. Every hour spent dealing with an application lodged without a person's knowledge or an application that plainly cannot succeed is another hour that cannot be spent on somebody genuinely waiting for a decision. Delay has a human cost. For an applicant with a legitimate claim, a backlog is not an interesting statistic in an annual report; it is months of uncertainty. That is why efficiency and fairness should not be treated as competing ideas. A slow system is not necessarily a fair system. A system buried in unnecessary process does not become more simply because it produces more paperwork.

Good administration means giving each case the attention it requires, no less but also no more. That principle runs through this bill. It gives the tribunal greater flexibility in how reasons are delivered. It protects written reasons where applicants are more vulnerable. It improves the information received when migration applications are lodged. It gives registrars carefully defined additional powers. It makes it easier to correct obvious errors. It provides greater flexibility in the deployment of tribunal members, and it introduces an identity check designed to ensure migration review applications involve real people actively participating in their own proceedings. These are not dramatic changes and that is not a criticism. Parliament is sometimes at its most useful when it fixes the machinery.

The Albanese government undertook a major reform when we abolished the discredited AAT and established the Administrative Review Tribunal. We replaced political appointments with a merit based process. We restored integrity to an institution that Australians need to trust, and we are doing the less glamourous but also equally important work of making that institution operate better.

The coalition may object to our record on the ART and I understand why—we abolished one of their more successful post-election employment programs—but Australians did not need an administrative appeals tribunal designed as a soft landing for failed political candidates; they needed an independent review body, and that is what Labor created. It is our responsibility now to make sure it remains independent, fair and capable of doing its job in the face of a rapidly growing caseload.

The standard should be straightforward. Government decisions need to be capable of review. Genuine applicants must receive procedural fairness. Decision-makers must be independent and qualified. Our system should not waste months doing work that adds nothing to the quality of the result. This is what this bill advances. It strengthens the tribunal we created, it protects the integrity of migration review and it helps ensure Australians who need administrative review receive something that every good justice system should aim to provide: a fair decision from an independent decision-maker within a reasonable time period. I commend the bill to the House.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

The Administrative Review Tribunal exists to provide an independent, merit based review of government decisions. It's a key accountability mechanism within our administrative law system, which allows Australian citizens, visa applicants, businesses, veterans, NDIS participants and others to seek review if they believe that a government decision is wrong. A healthy democracy requires not only that governments make decisions but that those decisions can be independently scrutinised. The ART process helps ensure that government power is exercised fairly, consistently and according to our laws, so it's absolutely essential that the tribunal is accessible to all who require it, that it is adequately resourced and that it's capable of delivering timely decisions. The intent of this legislation is to meet some of those objectives.

The Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 seeks to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the migration review framework to assist the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and the ART to manage quite substantial migration caseloads, to streamline processes, to reduce administrative burden and to support more timely decision-making by government. These are sensible objectives. No Australian would ever suggest that people seeking a review of government decisions which profoundly impact their lives should be kept waiting years for an outcome. Similarly, no-one would ever suggest that the tribunal should be burdened by unnecessary procedural complexity. The challenge is not determining whether efficiency in decision-making is important. We know that it is. The issue is how we can achieve that efficiency and whether expedited outcomes should be accomplished at the expense of risk of procedural fairness.

The tribunal is currently operating under pretty significant pressure. The tribunal received 83,640 applications in 2024-25, of which 65,586, or 78 per cent, related to migration and protection matters. That was up from 43 per cent of a much smaller caseload five years ago. The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia received 7,503 migration filings in the same year. That was an increase of 116 per cent since 2022-23. Migration now represents three-quarters of all non-family-law matters before the court. Meanwhile, the tribunal may have as many as 80 budgeted member vacancies unfilled. The consequences of those vacancies are quite predictable: an ever-growing backlog and increasingly lengthy delays for applicants who are seeking reviews.

Nowhere is that pressure more acute than in protection matters. The tribunal's protection division alone has an active case load of over 37,000 cases, with a median wait of 155 weeks—that's almost three years—to finalise a case. The Federal Court's protection case load sits at roughly 6,300 matters, with many first hearings not listed until 2029. Behind each of those numbers is a person whose safety, and often whose family's safety, depends on how and when their claim will be decided.

So that raises a pretty important question: if the principal problems confronting the tribunal are overwhelming case loads and insufficient capacity, is streamlining the tribunal's review processes really the best solution that the government can come up with? I ask: has the government adequately explored whether the tribunal has sufficient resources and staffing and the membership necessary to perform its statutory function? Recently, I sent a number of questions on notice to the Attorney-General concerning the operations of the tribunal, about its appointment processes for members, about the operation of merits lists and about reports that more than 80 budgeted member positions remain vacant despite the rapidly growing case loads. I look forward to receiving considered responses from the minister.

Notwithstanding the importance of improving the responsiveness of the tribunal, I'm concerned that this bill could enable procedural reform to become a substitute for adequate resourcing. We have to be cautious about solving capacity problems by reducing opportunities for the applicants to have their cases heard fairly. I want to test this concern against three specific measures in this bill, each of which was closely examined by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee.

The first is the proposal to allow the president to authorise registrars, not appointed tribunal members, to dismiss applications on the basis that they have no reasonable prospects of success. The bill itself contains no definition or criteria for 'reasonable prospects of success'. That's left entirely to the discretion of individual registrars. Of the tribunal's 112 registrars, only about half hold a law degree or an equivalent qualification. Less than a third hold both legal and dispute resolution qualifications. In contrast, the tribunal members are subject to a rigorous merit based appointment process, specifically because they are normally trusted to weigh the substances of such claims. So there are real concerns that registrars could be asked to undertake merits based assessments without the training or the experience that that role demands. That's particularly concerning given how many applicants to the ART are unrepresented and may not be able to argue the facts that are at issue. The Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law has warned that this change could well generate further litigation and appeals which would simply shift delays downstream to the Federal Circuit and Family Court rather than actually resolving them.

The department has claimed that this power would only be used in objective cases. The example given was of an applicant who's left Australia and plainly can't meet a visa criterion of being onshore. But migration decisions are rarely that clear or that objective. They generally require a level of assessment that would sit more properly with a member, not a registrar.

The Law Council has proposed a sensible set of safeguards around this issue: that only registrars with legal qualifications and sufficient post-admission experience should exercise this power; that a registrar should consult a senior member before making a dismissal finding that they're uncertain about; that applicants should be given notice and an opportunity to be heard before dismissal; and that dismissal should not foreclose a request for ministerial intervention. But none of these safeguards appear in the bill, and the Senate committee failed to recommend their adoption.

The concerns are magnified in protection matters, where there's rarely an objective fact that the registrar could point to. Community legal centres have told the Senate committee that applicants often arrive at the tribunal with a claim that looks incomplete, not because it lacks merit but because the department never interviewed them, because a dishonest migration agent lodged a claim on their behalf without properly recording their circumstances or because trauma just made it too difficult for them to disclose the full basis of their fears at the first opportunity. A test of 'no reasonable prospects of success', applied by a registrar on the papers, risks screening out genuine refugees before their claim ever reaches a tribunal member. It's my belief that, if the government wants this House to trust that a subjective, undefined test will be applied consistently and fairly by staff who don't hold statutory independence, it shouldn't be doing it in this circumstance, and it should be willing to write basic safeguards into this legislation around those powers.

The second measure allows the tribunal to give reasons for a decision orally, with a written statement only being required if a party requests it—with the clock for judicial review running from the oral decision, not from the receipt of written reasons. This could potentially lead to applicants being forced to file for judicial review without ever having seen the reasons for the very decision that they're appealing—remembering that two-thirds of applicants at the merits review stage are self-represented and that, for many, English is a second language.

Community legal centres report that more than one in five of their tribunal clients seeking protection need an interpreter. An interpreter's role is to translate language, not to explain complex legal concepts. Many of these applicants already find a written statement of reasons difficult to absorb, even with a lawyer's help. Expecting them to grasp an oral decision on the day, in a language not their own, and then correctly identify a legal error in it before a 14-day window closes is an unrealistic safeguard.

The third measure is the new identity verification requirement for applicants to the tribunal and the court, with detail for that being entirely left to regulations which are yet to be drafted, and mandatory dismissal for applicants to the tribunal who are unable to comply. This measure will affect most those people who are stateless, who arrived in this country without documents or whose nationality is genuinely contested—in some cases, people whose entire claim for protection turns on a dispute about their identity. Control over identity documents is a recognised tool of coercive control in family and domestic violence, and it's a recognised tool of exploitation by unscrupulous employers and migration agents. This measure could well exacerbate the vulnerability of victims in such circumstances. It would punish them rather than the bad actors that it is putatively aimed at.

These matters engage Australia's non-refoulement obligations under the Refugee Convention, the convention against torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Many protection applicants are stateless, having fled without identity documents or had documents destroyed or confiscated along the way of their travels. Requiring them to satisfy an as yet unspecified identity check before their claim can even be considered risks them being returned to danger because of the very persecution that forced them to flee without papers in the first place. The government's stated aim with this measure is to address fraudulent representation and applications lodged without a person's knowledge, which is legitimate. But a legitimate aim does not justify legislating a mandatory dismissal power while the safeguards for its most vulnerable subjects remain, on the government's own evidence, as yet undesigned.

Some measures in this bill are reasonable and appropriate. The case load pressure on the tribunal and the court is real. Clarifying the president's jurisdiction, correcting the Taxation Administration Act timeframe and excluding the Christmas period from document deadlines are uncontroversial. But I have concerns regarding the qualifications evidence on registrars, the compounding effect of the reasons timeframes and the government's own admission that it cannot yet say how a stateless applicant will be treated under a mandatory dismissal power.

Grandmothers for Refugees, which traditionally supported people seeking asylum through the fast-track era of the AAT, is still seeing the human damage caused when the integrity of a merits review system is compromised in the name of speed. The Kaldor centre's review of Switzerland's asylum centre reached the opposite conclusion—that fairness and efficiency reinforce each other and that a well-resourced, properly staffed process is the best way to actually clear a backlog. Switzerland has cut its average time from application to finalisation from close to four years to about 3½ months without stripping away procedural protections in the way that this government proposes.

Migration reviews undertaken by the tribunal have the power to determine whether or not individuals are permitted to stay in this country. We are, fundamentally, a nation of migrants. Our prosperity, our culture, our identity and our social fabric have all been shaped by generations of people who've come to this country and made Australia their home. Australians support migration when they believe it is fair, orderly and well administered and when they believe that the institutions responsible for migration decisions are performing those functions effectively.

I accept that action is needed to improve the timeliness and efficiency of our migration processes. The current situation, in which the ART is swamped by tens of thousands of applications that it can't service, is not sustainable. But our reforms should be guided by the principles of efficiency and fairness together. A system which is fair but takes years to deliver decisions is failing, but so is the system that is fast but denies people meaningful opportunities to be heard. Australians deserve an administrative review system which is efficient, fair and properly resourced. If this parliament is serious about administrative justice, we have to ensure that all three objectives are achieved, not just the first. For those reasons, I move the amendment circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that the bill:

(a) does not exempt protection visa matters from the proposed discretion to give oral rather than written reasons, notwithstanding that such an exemption is provided for social security, veterans' entitlements, aged care and NDIS matters;

(b) extends to registrars, who are not required to hold legal qualifications, the power to dismiss protection visa review applications on the subjective ground that they have no reasonable prospects of success, a function hitherto reserved for tribunal members; and

(c) introduces a mandatory identity verification requirement for tribunal applicants without prescribing, in the bill itself, the criteria or safeguards that will apply, notwithstanding that many protection applicants are stateless, undocumented, or have had identity documents withheld by an abusive partner or exploitative employer; and

(2) calls on the government to amend the bill to:

(a) exempt protection visa matters from the oral reasons provisions in Part 10;

(b) restrict the dismissal power in Part 1 to tribunal members, or in the alternative, require that any registrar exercising that power hold appropriate legal qualifications and consult a senior member before dismissing a protection visa application; and

(c) ensure that the identity verification framework in Part 12 cannot result in the mandatory dismissal of a protection visa application without the applicant first being given notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond".

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. Replacing the previous Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the Administrative Review Tribunal commenced operation on 14 October 2024 and operates as Australia's federal merits-review body in that it provides an independent review of decisions made by Australian government agencies, departments and ministers. Its jurisdiction is incredibly wide, providing a review mechanism for decisions made under more than 400 Commonwealth acts. That being the case, it needs to be equipped with the right tools to deliver efficient and effective reviews, to deliver high-quality reviews and to deliver accurate and sustainable reviews of government decisions that are tailored to the decisions being reviewed—recognising, of course, that not every review is the same. In fact, every review needs to be determined on its own merits. The system of reviewing the decisions of agencies, departments and ministers provides the Australian public with trust and confidence in our institutions, and this review mechanism is critical to our system of government.

Now, it is indeed the job of the Administrative Review Tribunal to consider each case on its merits by taking a fresh and objective look at the facts, law and policy relating to the original decision and also by considering new information as applicable. In applying this fresh lens, the tribunal can agree with the original decision, change the original decision or make a new decision. None of this is changing with this bill.

Overall, however, the objectives of the tribunal, as set out in the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, are to provide an independent mechanism of review that is fair and just and ensures that applications to the tribunal are resolved as quickly as possible and with as little formality and expense as a proper consideration of the matters before the tribunal permits. It also seeks to ensure that it is accessible and responsive to the diverse needs, including language needs, of the parties to proceedings, that it improves the transparency and quality of government decision-making and, importantly, that it promotes public trust and confidence in the tribunal.

The 400 Commonwealth acts and legislative instruments the tribunal can review decisions in relation to cover a very broad range of topics. The relevant act, regulation or other legislative instrument must state that the tribunal can review the decision. There is no general power of review. The most common types of decisions the tribunal reviews are visas, including migration and refugee visas; Centrelink payments, including family assistance, paid parental leave and student assistance; decisions in relation to the National Disability Insurance Scheme; decisions in relation to child support; taxation; Commonwealth workers' compensation; and veterans' entitlements. In addition, the tribunal's review jurisdiction includes decisions relating to Australian citizenship, bankruptcy, civil aviation, corporations and financial services regulation, customs, freedom of information, passports and security assessments by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. That is a huge workload, so, given the breadth of this jurisdiction, the Administrative Review Tribunal must be empowered to operate efficiently and effectively to ensure that fair and just reviews of complex and, in some cases, life-changing decisions for the applicants are delivered promptly and accurately. This is particularly important given the tribunal was established to make sure that community members have an available avenue to seek review of government decisions, and that avenue needs to operate effectively, efficiently and fairly.

Equally, the Administrative Review Tribunal requires two important features: firstly, flexibility, because the individual underlying facts leading to an individual review will always be different; and, secondly, proportionality. This means that, because of the breadth of the jurisdiction of the Administrative Review Tribunal, the time and resources expended to determine a matter should reflect the complexity of the issues, which will be different in every case, and the objective importance of what is at stake. Again, it is different in every case. This really is directed at reducing delays and recognising genuine applicants and providing them with timely and effective decisions.

This bill is squarely directed at that goal in that it seeks to support the Administrative Review Tribunal and the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia to more effectively deal with their already significant but ever-increasing case loads, particularly relevant to migration and protection decisions made under the Migration Act 1958. It does this at the same time as preserving fairness. It shouldn't be characterised any other way, or as a shortcut or an effort to mask a lack of resources, although a properly resourced Administrative Review Tribunal is, of course, critical.

What does the bill do? It facilitates the tribunal to give oral reasons for a decision, with written statements of reasons to be given at the request of an applicant in all reviews except for reviews relating to social security, veterans' entitlements, aged care or the NDIS, or other reviews that might be prescribed by regulations. An oral decision is still a properly reasoned decision. It still requires a proper consideration of the facts of the relevant legislation and of each case on its merits. An oral decision is not somehow of less value than a written decision in circumstances where a proper consideration of the merits is given by those making the decision.

The bill also authorises registrars to exercise additional powers, including to reinstate applications in certain circumstances and to dismiss applications if satisfied that the application has no reasonable prospects of success. Some applications genuinely fall into that category. It also permits members and other authorised persons to correct obvious errors in registrar issued orders, and it expands the class of decisions treated as intelligence and security decisions by the Administrative Review Tribunal Act to include in the definition of exempt security record decisions those decisions relating to documents that are claimed to be exempt security documents, as well as those that have already been found to be such documents.

This bill engages with the right to a fair trial as identified under article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the right to an effective remedy pursuant to article 2(3) of that same covenant. With respect to the latter right, the bill will operate to protect the right to an effective remedy by overarchingly supporting the operation of an administrative review tribunal that conducts prompt and efficient tribunal review with as little formality and expense as a proper consideration of the matter requires.

We heard from the previous member that many applicants are unrepresented and in relatively difficult financial circumstances, so a system that has as little formality and expense as possible and is as quick as reasonably practicable while still maintaining fairness is incredibly important to applicants falling within that category who do not have the resources for a prolonged merits review. This reflects the flexibility and proportionality aspects that are necessary to achieve an efficient and effective administrative review tribunal.

With respect to the former human right, article 14(1) prescribes that every person in the determination of rights and obligations in a suit at law is entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Its application to administrative review proceedings is not completely settled, as there are questions over whether these types of proceedings constitute a suit of law. However, to the extent that there is any limitation, it's reasonable, necessary and proportionate to the objects of the bill and the objects of the Administrative Review Tribunal.

As a collective, this bill and the reforms therein are directed at facilitating a more effective, efficient and sustainable merits and judicial review framework by deterring vexatious and frivolous applications at the same time as promoting engagement with genuine applicants and ensuring they receive a timely and effective decision. It does this by seeking to address the significant case loads, and previous contributions from members have indicated that these case loads are in the tens of thousands and growing. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians were promised a better administrative review system. As a lawyer, a barrister of some 26 years now or thereabouts, I understand the importance of administrative review. Australians were promised that abolishing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and replacing it with Labor's new Administrative Review Tribunal would deliver a system that was fairer, more efficient and better equipped to deal with its case load. Around a billion dollars later, less than two years after the new tribunal commenced operation, parliament is back here again fixing this bill—more amendments, more repairs, more powers being added, more procedures being corrected and a tribunal now carrying a case load of more than 131,000 matters.

The coalition will support this bill because it contains some sensible measures to improve the operation of the Administrative Review Tribunal and help address significant pressure in our migration review system. Where legislation improves efficiency, removes duplication and allows appropriately qualified people to get on with the job, we'll support it. But Labor should not pretend this bill has appeared in some sort of vacuum. The former attorney-general abolished the AAT, committed a billion dollars to establishing its replacement and dealing with associated pressures in the migration system and told Australians the new system would be better. Australians were entitled to expect that, after spending that sort of money, this government would get it right. Instead, parliament is here yet again being asked to clean up this mess.

The Administrative Review Tribunal commenced operation on 14 October 2024. Since then, parliament has dealt with the original establishment legislation, miscellaneous measures, further amendments and now this bill. The government has also committed another $69 million to continue dealing with this tribunal backlog—because that's what it is facing: a backlog. Australians were entitled to expect that, after around a billion dollars had been committed to creating a new system, it would be settled and operationally effective. Instead, less than two years later, parliament is again being asked to correct emissions, expand powers and improve procedures.

The numbers tell the story. As at 31 May this year the tribunal had more than 131,000 cases on hand. Just five years earlier that figure was around 65,000. The caseload has effectively doubled. The median time taken to finalise an application has increased by 22 weeks, and just 43 per cent of applications are being finalised within 12 months of lodgement. Anyone who has worked in the legal system understands what that means. A backlog is not just a statistic. Behind every unresolved matter is someone waiting for certainty, is someone who doesn't sleep at night, is someone who is aggrieved by a decision from a government department. Justice delayed is justice denied.

Before entering this parliament, I spent 16 years working as a barrister. I've seen firsthand what happens when disputes become unnecessarily complicated and unnecessarily prolonged. Good legal and administrative systems must be fair, but they must also be efficient. Those principles are not mutually exclusive. A system that makes decisions quickly but unfairly is unacceptable, but a system where people wait years for an outcome is not delivering justice either. Governments have a responsibility to design systems that reach proper decisions while using taxpayers' resources responsibly. That's why the coalition supports the practical measures in this bill.

One of the key reforms is to expand the powers the president of the tribunal may authorise the registrar to exercise. These include dismissing an application where there are no reasonable prospects of success, requiring leave before specified further applications can be made and reinstating an application where the registrar has authority to dismiss it. These are sensible reforms. Tribunal members are a finite resource. Every hour a tribunal member spends dealing with a procedural issue that could appropriately be handled by a qualified registrar is an hour they cannot spend determining a substantive matter. We need the right people doing the right work. Importantly, there are safeguards. The president can impose conditions on an authorisation, and mechanisms remain available for applications to be reinstated where appropriate. At the end of July, the tribunal had 112 registrars, and more than nine in 10 held qualifications in law, dispute resolution or both. We're talking about appropriately qualified people exercising clearly defined powers.

But with additional power must come additional responsibility and accountability. If parliament gives registrars greater authority, parliament should know whether those powers are working. How many applications are being dismissed? How many decisions are being overturned? Are the tribunal's powers reducing the backlog? Are the current rules freeing tribunal members to deal with substantive matters? That's why the coalition will pursue an amendment in the Senate to strengthen annual reporting—because we've got to know the answers to these important questions. Governments are very good—this Labor government in particular is very good—at making announcements. They're very good at talking the talk. But the real test is when the rubber hits the road. Parliament should be able to assess the results and determine whether taxpayers are getting a better functioning tribunal.

The bill also contains a number of practical improvements which the coalition supports. It will require specified migration and protection review applications to use an approved form. It will also allow appropriate migration decisions and reasons to be given orally. It removes unnecessary duplication in notifications to the Department of Home Affairs. It introduces identity-verification requirements in prescribed migration matters. It restores the standard 28-day review period for certain taxation decisions. And it makes it easier to correct particular obvious errors. None of those measures alone will solve a backlog of more than 131,000 cases. But, taken together, sensible procedural changes can reduce unnecessary work and allow the tribunal to focus resources on where they are needed most.

The bill will allow tribunal members, in appropriate migration matters, to give their decisions and reasons orally, rather than requiring written reasons in every instance. They will continue to be required in specified categories, including social security, veterans entitlements, aged care and NDIS matters. And, boy, let me tell you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, there are a lot of NDIS matters before the tribunal. I understand, just for the sake of it, that around 80 per cent of matters involving the NDIS that are going to the tribunal are overturning the decisions of the NDIA—around 80 per cent. That's something where this government needs to take a very long, hard look at itself.

The 35-day period for seeking judicial review will run from notification of the oral decision. An applicant will ordinarily have 14 days to request written reasons, and the tribunal will ordinarily have 14 days to provide them. That strikes what we consider to be an appropriate balance. People must have a genuine opportunity to understand and challenge a decision where the law allows. But proceedings must also eventually reach a conclusion. That is a fundamental tenet of our justice system.

Another important reform is the introduction of identity-verification requirements for prescribed migration and protection applicants who are not in immigration detention. At tribunal level, an application must be dismissed where an applicant fails to comply with the prescribed requirement. That's reasonable. If somebody is asking Australia's migration review system to reconsider a decision affecting their status in this country, Australians have every right to expect that that person is who they say they are. That's not unreasonable. It's a basic expectation. Our migration system must have that kind of integrity. Applicants seeking the benefit of that system must genuinely engage with it, and the tribunal must be able to establish the identity of the person seeking review.

Every unnecessary delay in a migration matter has consequences. It consumes tribunal resources, it consumes departmental resources, it costs taxpayers' money, and it delays other people who may have legitimate and complex cases requiring proper consideration. Australians expect the government to know who's coming to this country, why they're here, whether they are entitled to remain and whether our migration laws are being properly enforced. Administrative review is an important safeguard but review cannot become an excuse for endless process. Fairness requires proper review. Integrity requires some degree of finality.

There's another provision in this bill which says a lot about the quality of Labor's original ART legislation. The bill restores the standard 28-day period for seeking review of certain decisions by the Commissioner of Taxation, refusing an extension of time. Why does that need fixing, I hear you ask, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie? It is because that standard review period was not properly carried across when Labor abolished the AAT and established the ART. After the enormous cost of Labor's restructure, a basic review period still fell through the cracks. Administrative law is built on technical provisions because those provisions determine real rights and real obligations. When a government tears down an established system and rebuilds it, it assumes responsibility for getting those details right, and Labor didn't, so, once again, parliament is being asked to fix it.

The coalition also believes there is another practical reform the government should consider. We'll move an amendment in the Senate asking the government to consider a further amendment to deal with clear and objectively identifiable administrative errors or oversights in migration decisions.

Now, common sense needs to prevail when it comes to administrative law and when it comes to the Administrative Review Tribunal. If everyone can see that an obvious administrative mistake has been made, why force the applicant, the department and the tribunal through the machinery of a substantive merits review outcome simply to correct it? Fix the mistake quickly, save tribunal resources, save department departmental resources and allow the next person in the queue to have their matter heard sooner. That's not weakening administrative review; it's making it work.

Now, Labor cannot rewrite history. The coalition is taking a constructive approach to this bill. Where it improves efficiency, we will support it. Where it gives appropriately qualified registrars sensible powers, we will support it. Where it removes duplication, we will support it. Where it strengthens identity verification and the integrity of migration review, we will support it. But our support does not give Labor permission to rewrite the history of how we arrived here. Labor abolished the AAT and it cost Australian taxpayers around $1 billion to do it, and now we're fixing up their constant mistakes. (Time expired)

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. At the outset, I want to say that, as a Labor government, we are committed to the rule of law, to enabling impartial justice and to promoting public trust in law and in decisions made by judges. It's fundamental to a liberal democracy. As I was preparing for this speech, I was reminded of that biblical story in the Book of Exodus about Moses. As the population of the children of Israel grew, he was settling disputes from morning till dark. His father-in-law, Jethro, came and saw him, according to the writer, and said, 'How about you appoint some judges? How about you appoint some delegates, some leaders over the thousands and hundreds and tens and fifties et cetera? Because you can't do it all yourself.' That hierarchy of judicial personnel and administrative personnel is in the Judeo-Christian legal systems that we've inherited in the common law from Britain onwards, so it's almost a biblical thing.

I was really reminded about that as I was looking at this piece of legislation. We need to appoint capable, trustworthy people. That's what Jethro said to Moses. And you know what? We need to do it as well. Our legal system needs to be trustworthy. If people are in a position where they do not trust the judgements of judicial officers or administrative officers, there's a problem. The ART, the Administrative Review Tribunal, has responsibility for hundreds of pieces of legislation. People can make application to the ART if they feel that they've been dealt with arbitrarily or capriciously by some administrative decision of government.

I want to say to the member opposite, the member for Fisher, that the great irony of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which we abolished back in 2024, was that, in friendly media outlets, Liberal and National Party ministers for home affairs, immigration and judicial matters would criticise the Administrative Appeals Tribunal regularly, yet it was a sort of legislative or administrative retirement home for Liberal and National Party failed candidates. It was just astonishing how they would do it. They were the very people who would make decisions they would criticise. If you lost a state seat in Queensland as a Liberal candidate, there's a good chance you were appointed to the AAT. It was amazing. It was stacked.

But let me tell the member for Fisher that it was no utopian legal process. Even they knew it. They knew it. It was a friendly process. It was a lot less legal than the sort of cases I dealt with as a lawyer—cases from the Magistrates Court to the High Court of Australia. It was nothing like the High Court or the Supreme Court of Queensland or the full court of the Family Court. It was nothing like that. But it was certainly a process that deserved respect, and it was important that it have the confidence of the Australian public, and we had no confidence in it. It was totally bastardised—if I can put it like that—by the previous government. They really, really did a bad job.

So I commend the member for Isaacs, the former attorney-general, for the work he did. We were determined to restore integrity and public confidence in our merits based review system, and the establishment of the Administrative Review Tribunal was critical in that regard.

But we've seen some challenges since October 2024. If you look at the figures, the number of lodgements has more than doubled and the time for finalisation of appeals has more than doubled in the last five years. So there's been a challenge. Those figures go back, of course, to the AAT days. As at 31 May 2026, only 43 per cent of applications were finalised within 12 months—which is the gold standard, I might add, for what should happen. We've got a 79 per cent increase in the number of migration applications finalised in 2024-25 compared to the previous year. That's really an astonishing increase in the number of migration cases. And, really, it's that area in particular that vexes us and causes us to try and clean up this mess.

We've been working hard to clean it up, and I have confidence in the ART. Think about the whole range of areas that the ART deals with, including social security, veterans' entitlements, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I don't always agree with the member for Fisher, but I've got to say that, in my experience, the NDIS doesn't always do a particularly good job in making decisions. The number of times—in my observation—that decisions are overturned at the ART level really bears out, I think, some examination of decision-making in the NDIS.

The bill has been informed by the operational experience in the last few years. There's no doubt about that. The changes we're making principally relate to the migration case load, because that's the area, as I've said in numerous speeches over the years on this area of administrative law, which has caused us the most vexations—problems. It's the tribunal's largest on-case case load, and greater efficiencies could be achieved, I think, by doing a number of things.

I accept the government's reasoning in terms of oral reasons in matters. It's crucial. It's absolutely vital in those circumstances. It's not unusual for judicial officers or administrative officers to make extemporaneous judgements or decisions. It's not an unusual area of practising law. On my observation as a former litigation lawyer—I spent nearly a quarter of a century practising as a lawyer, as an accredited specialist in family law. And I know many, many times judges or judicial registrars may make decisions orally. This is not an unusual procedure.

Don't let anyone think that this straightforward change, which really is appropriately balanced, is disagreeing with the integrity of the system. It's not in any way at all. If you are unhappy with that decision, you have the capacity to seek the written reasoning of that particular officer. Written reasons can be asked for. You can appeal, if you wish, to the court. If an application review of a reviewable migration decision or a reviewable protection decision is required, it can be made in an appropriate, approved form. The bill does have some flexibility for a salaried member of the tribunal to become a sessional member or vice versa. There's an authorisation for registrars to exercise additional powers, and we've seen this over the years.

My observation practising as a lawyer was that registrars had more and more power over the years. More and more delegation was done. This is not unusual, what we're suggesting here. I want the public who may be listening to this or may read it afterwards—not that it's a bestseller, what I have to say. But, truly, it is important that people understand that delegation of powers to registrars is not unusual in our legal system. It allows any member to correct an obvious error in a decision or a statement of reasons for a decision made by a registrar. The bill contains some technical amendments in relation to clarification. The President of Tribunal is assigned in every jurisdiction.

The identification verification is important. As part of our broad commitment to ensuring the integrity of the migration system, we've got a new power we're introducing to require verification of identity of applicants seeking review of certain protection and other migration decisions. It's crucial. Fraud and criminality must be stamped out. We've got to make sure that the people who make the applications are actually the correct people. This is consistent with both the ART and the Federal Court. It's important because we accept that in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia as well, which I'll refer to as 'the court'.

The specific visa classes and particulars of how and when the verification takes place will be set out in regulations. The bill canvasses options for both in-person and virtual verification and allows for classes of persons or classes of applications to be exempt from the process through regulation. That's not unusual either. The intent of these changes is to ensure applicants actively engage with the systems of merits and judicial review in early stages of a proceeding so there's integrity in the system in terms of who the person fighting the case is.

The reform builds on our track record in terms of efficiencies of merit review, including the passage of reforms earlier this year which allowed review of prescribed migration matters to occur in the papers, and I've spoken about that numerous times—that is, without an oral hearing. That's not unusual. It's very common in our administrative and judicial processes for matters to be dealt with on the papers. It's very common at an interim hearing in the kind of court we're talking about here, for example, for matters to be dealt with on the papers and maybe some words from the bar table or something like that. It's not unusual for some oral submissions to be made while matters are dealt with on the papers.

These reforms also address a cohort of applicants where applications are made on their behalf without express knowledge or consent, and that's crucial in terms of the integrity of the whole process. It will operate differently between the court and the tribunal. At first, any applicant who is subject to identity verification requirements and fails to satisfy the identity verification process will have their application review mandatorily dismissed, and there may be circumstances when someone is just unable to complete the verification process for any good reason. In those circumstances, all applicants who've had their matters mandatorily dismissed can seek reinstatement. I think that's a fair system. Under the existing processes set out in the Migration Act, they can make their case as to why they're unable to complete the verification. That's an opportunity for there to be integrity in the process. The member hearing the reinstatement could then make decisions about whether or not to make further orders requiring the applicant to reattempt the identity-verification process. I hope they make it on the identity verification. I hope they do. I want the people who make applications to be the very people who've been aggrieved by the decision under the Migration Act.

In addition, any applicant who is subject to an identity-verification requirement and fails to satisfy the identity-verification process would require leave of the court to continue the proceedings under the tribunal. Division 2 of the court would be able to extend the period in which the requirement must be satisfied or dispense with the requirement entirely. Division 2 may, rather than must, dismiss proceedings if an applicant has failed to comply with the requirements if the court has not ordered that the requirement be dispensed with and leave has not been granted to continue the proceedings. An applicant can subsequently seek leave of Division 2 to reinstate proceedings which have been dismissed for failure to satisfy the requirements, and these are critical.

The reality is that the government, as I said before, inherited an absolutely disgraceful mess from those opposite when it came to both the student visa program and the AAT. We've been doing our best to clean that up. In recent years we've tried to rectify this by putting international student numbers on a more sustainable path and reducing the number of student visas issued.

I want to make it clear. International education is an incredibly important export industry for Australia, including in my electorate of Blair. We've got two University of Southern Queensland, or UniSQ, campuses, in Ipswich and Springfield. Indeed, greater priority is now being given to regional and outer metropolitan universities like UniSQ and TAFEs. But we need to manage the growth of the sector in a sustainable way, along with our migration program more broadly, and that's exactly what we're doing. In recent years we've cut migration by more than 45 per cent from its post-pandemic peak. The number of international students—the subject of this bill—will continue to fall as we prioritise the skills we need to care for our sick and elderly and to build homes, despite the opposition opposing our every attempt to put caps on international students.

As part of the increase in overall scrutiny of the student visa program, the Department of Home Affairs has been working with the Attorney-General and the ART to reduce the number of student visa refusal appeals, to help manage pressures while maintaining the integrity of the program. In this way, we're seeking to get better decision-making by the department in the first instance so fewer cases can be appealed and sent back.

We're also boosting funding to community legal services to help ensure applicants get good legal advice and apply for the correct visas in the first place, thus making it easier for the tribunal to make decisions more quickly and easily. Our $3.9 billion National Access to Justice Partnership announced last year was the biggest-ever Commonwealth investment in legal assistance and is helping to fund frontline legal services to provide critical assistance and access to justice for vulnerable Australians. In fact, TASC legal and social justice services in Ipswich in my electorate have received money under that agreement. I know they do a lot of really valuable advocacy work for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, including victims of domestic and family violence, and NDIS clients.

I want to thank the government for this particular piece of legislation. I think it's absolutely necessary, and it's got integrity. (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 and, in doing so, acknowledge the member for Blair's long service in such legal matters. I acknowledge too that he played a part in a joint select committee about the efficacy of visas, migration and other matters as well, with the member for La Trobe. I also respect the member for La Trobe's work with the Victorian police and his advocacy of justice and what is right. Certainly, the member for Blair in his contribution talked about reviews of visa matters, the placements and numbers of international students and what the government may or may not have been doing in that regard.

In the minister's second reading speech, he noted that the Administrative Review Tribunal began operations on 14 October 2024. At the time, importantly, it replaced the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal as Australia's primary federal merits review body. Time will tell whether this will enable better jurisdiction of all these types of matters. The minister pointed out:

The ART provides an independent mechanism of review of government decisions made under over 400 Commonwealth acts—a function that is critical to Australia's system of government.

Those were the minister's words not mine.

We face a situation in Australia at the moment where the decisions of ministers, tribunals and courts come under a lot of pressure and stress, particularly when it comes to visa matters. Every member of parliament is often lobbied about the merits or otherwise of particular individuals who seek to come to this country. Coming to Australia is the best ticket in the world. Whilst I appreciate there has to be clarity and transparency around these decisions, around who makes these decisions, around the independence of these decisions, it's not easy for any government, Labor or coalition, to settle upon the best system at the time.

The minister said this:

The government established the ART to ensure that members of the community have an avenue to seek review of government decisions in an effective, efficient and fair way.

The government recognises that not every review is the same and that the ART should provide a meaningful opportunity for review in a way that is appropriate to the circumstances of the case.

The government is therefore committed to ensuring the ART has the tools and the flexibility it needs to deliver these objectives.

Fair enough.

What I worry about though—and I've raised it in this chamber and the House a number of times; you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, would have heard my concerns about ministers not having the powers that they once had under the Westminster system to make the decisions that were always theirs. At the end of the day, the buck stops with the minister. They are the ones who have their names at the bottom of a bill, of a decision. It's not the bureaucrats or the tribunals or the faceless people appointed to certain positions who will face the media, who will have their name on a ballot paper. It's the minister who the buck stops with, and rightly so. I think that all too often this Labor government is outsourcing its work to judicial review tribunals and the like, and ministers aren't being given the autonomy to make the decisions. They will be the ones called to account if a decision goes pear-shaped.

I know the coalition supports this bill. I appreciate that there has been an amendment put forward by the member for Kooyong. But, as the minister said in the second reading speech:

The bill would also support the ART to manage its significant workload across case types, through measures that would create efficiencies, improve processes and increase flexibility.

All of those are desirable measures. What we are seeing is an increase in complexity of visa cases, visa cases where people want to come to this country, want to work in this country, want to stay in this country, want to become permanent residents of this country. As I stated earlier, citizenship in Australia is the best ticket in the world because this is the best country in the world.

Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate what the member for Barton says—'Hear, hear!'—and I thank you for that!

The situation with international student visas is an interesting one, because I know that during COVID we, as a country and as a coalition government, sent a lot of students home. We told them that the best place for them to be was back in the country of their birth or citizenship—that Australia couldn't sustain that number of people, given the extraordinary, unique circumstances at that time. And we copped a lot of flak for it. I know there were a lot of universities and a lot of supporters of young people who helped out those students. We were doling out so much money to help Australian businesses stay afloat, to help Australians with their day-to-day cost of living and, indeed, to keep Australians alive with the rollout of the vaccine program. Quite frankly, the Treasury couldn't extend every source of relief and financial support to take into account the international students then.

But we also had a situation where backpackers were told the same thing: that they needed to return to their country of origin or to the country where they had citizenship, if they weren't able to do the work that they came here to do—that is, work in the horticulture or agriculture sector, or whatever the case might be. Some of those backpackers, many of whom came to Australia by sheer means of word-of-mouth advertising, have not returned. It has been difficult to get that number of visa holiday-makers back to this country. I want to put on the record that they are welcome—certainly from my point of view and from the Nationals' point of view. We don't want to see any cut to the number of backpackers, without whom, quite frankly, fruit would rot on the ground and many beers wouldn't be getting pulled in country pubs. And that is a fact.

And we are having a situation—I might be digressing a little bit from the technical aspects of this bill, but we are having a national discourse at the moment about migration, and migrants underpin regional Australia. If we go down this path of demonising migrants—if we go down this path of making it difficult for migrants, via a judicial process or whatever the case might be, to take their place in our country towns—then we might as well give up on our aged care, our child care and our health care per se, because it's the migrants who do so many of the jobs, and not just the jobs that Australians won't do but many, many of the high-level, highly paid—as they should be—positions in those regional communities.

I say that because, at the moment, we have people from one particular party making a lot of comments about migration and a lot of comments about migrants that simply don't stack up when you go into a country town and you go to a hotel and you see how many of them are working in the hospitality sector or when you go into a hospital and see how many of them are doing the work of the medical staff and the medical specialists to keep people alive. Many of them are in meat-processing plants but also, indeed, in universities and everything in between. That's really saying something about how our migrants are valued in regional Australia, and they're certainly valued by me.

I know this bill does speak to, as the member for Blair indicated, international students, visa classes and the rest. The minister said in the second reading speech:

The bill makes amendments to the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 and other Commonwealth legislation to expand tribunal powers, improve tribunal processes, increase efficiency, avoid administrative delays and aid the management of caseload surges and backlogs—particularly in migration matters.

And that is something that is most important. We do want to see those migration matters dealt with in an efficient way, of course, but in a speedy way as well, because what we're dealing with here is people's lives. What we're dealing with is people's ability to get on with their lives.

I have to say, I have had some matters, in recent times, with the amazingly resilient and beautiful Yazidi people in Wagga Wagga, which I took to Minister Burke. I found the way he handled those very professional. I found he handled those particular cases very compassionately, and I want to put that on the record because, all too often, all we ever see and hear about this level of parliament is the argy-bargy and the fact that people don't get along. Well, they do. There's a lot of bipartisanship that goes into these migration matters, and there's a lot of work that is done behind the scenes to help people to get citizenship and to help people with their visa cases.

One of the most difficult jobs in parliament is Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. It truly is. You only ever read about the cases which don't go the way of some communities or families or individuals. They make the media; they get headlines, and the shock jocks take great delight in trying to get the clickbait and the audience riled up. But what you see in so many cases are the right decisions made for and on behalf of the families in the national interest by ministers, be it Labor, be it Liberal—I say that because usually it's a Liberal minister in the coalition government who is the immigration minister, not a Nationals minister. There's a lot of compassion shown and a lot of common sense shown. It doesn't make headlines, but it is the right thing to do.

The minister said:

These changes apply to matters in the ART's migration caseload, as well as other caseloads where written reasons may not always be required.

As the minister pointed out, there are safeguards and guardrails around the particular legislation. The minister said:

Applicants who fail to comply with the identity verification requirement in FCFCOA proceedings would require leave of the Court to continue proceedings. Where leave is not granted, the FCFCOA would be able to dismiss the proceedings.

…   …   …

The bill would, among other matters:

The minister feels that this is important, that this is right and that this is just.

As I say, matters of migration law can become very sensitive and are very difficult, sometimes, to manage. I appreciate that, given the circumstances of huge migrations across the world, we as a nation need to have the best policies and the best framework in place. The coalition is supportive of that. The coalition wants to make sure that our borders are safe, that our borders are right and that migration policy is held up to every safeguard and every account by this government, and we will do whatever we can to make sure that we do get the right people in the right circumstances to support this nation and love it as we do.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I give the call to the member for Barton, I'll allow the Federation Chamber to sit beyond 7.30, so you can use the whole of your time if you wish.

Ash Ambihaipahar (Barton, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the indulgence to extend that time. I rise to speak specifically on this piece of legislation, the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. Before I get into the details of the bill, I want to take the House back to a room that most people in this parliament may never have had to sit through—not as a member but as a solicitor waiting for a client's case number to be called. For over a decade before I was elected as the member for Barton, I practised as an employment and industrial relations solicitor. I appeared in a number of jurisdictions—in particular, the Fair Work Commission, the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court proceedings—on both sides of the table—sometimes for the worker and sometimes for the small-business owner trying to do the right thing by their staff. In that time, I learnt something that no textbook can ever really quite capture, and that is that, for the person sitting across from you, reviews are not really conceptual constructs but literally the only thing standing between them and a decision that could actually cost their job, their visa or even their peace of mind. I remember what it was like to sit with a client, usually the day before a hearing, going through their story again and again because they needed to believe someone was actually going to listen to them. That is what this merits review is: it is the promise that when government gets it wrong—and government does sometimes get it wrong—there is a place to say so and to be heard and be taken seriously.

That is why what happened to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal under the former government mattered so much and why fixing it matters just as much. Trust in an institution is very important, and this isn't a concern I hold alone. This year, McKinnon released its landmark report called The state of Australia's democracy, and the picture it painted was quite sobering. It found that trust in our institutions is genuinely declining and that, when Australians are asked what actually determines who they vote for, two things top the list: first, whether a party or candidate has a real plan for the country's long-term problems; and, second, whether they can demonstrate integrity and accountability. It's not slogans or personalities that people rely on; it's the integrity and plan. That finding should sit with every one of us in this chamber, because it is a direct message from the public about what they expect government to be, and nowhere is that exception more concrete than in the systems people rely on when governments get a decision about their life wrong. If you want to rebuild trust in the theoretical, we have to start rebuilding trust in the concrete—in the institutions people actually have to walk into.

Merits and judicial reviews are not decorations of our system of government; they are how ordinary people actually test the decisions made about their lives and how government itself learns when its own processes have gone wrong. A functioning review system doesn't just protect the individual in front of it; it actually improves the quality of every decision that comes after it.

That is precisely why the removal of the AAT was necessary. Under the Liberals and Nationals, merits reviews became something else entirely. It almost felt like a bit of a consolation prize. Over nine long years, successive coalition attorney-generals appointed more than 80 mates and failed candidates to this tribunal, and, instead of being an institution Australians could trust to hold government to account, the AAT became a bit of a soft landing pad for the politically connected, funded by the taxpayer. Every one of those appointments came at a cost, not just in dollars but in confidence—that trust that I'm talking about. Every Australian who walked into the tribunal deserved to know that the person hearing their case was there because they were the best person for that job, not because of who they knew. This is not a partisan observation; it is simply what the evidence showed. This government has done the hard work of cleaning that up. We abolished the AAT. We legislated new merit based appointment processes for its successor, the Administrative Review Tribunal, and it's working. The tribunal is now deciding more matters than in any previous year on record.

But I want to be honest with the House: rebuilding an institution's credibility is not a one-off act. You don't restore trust with a single piece of legislation and then walk away. Reform has to be treated as an ongoing responsibility, not a box that's been ticked. That is exactly the spirit in which this bill is brought forward. This legislation is not sexy or glamorous. It will not make headlines outside of this building, possibly. But it's exactly the kind of unglamorous but practical work that determines whether an institution serves people well or badly.

The first set of measures goes to efficiency. Currently, the tribunal must give reasons for its decisions in writing in every case. This bill would allow reasons to be given orally in most matters, with parties retaining the right to request written reasons if they need them; for instance, if they intend to appeal. I think this is a sensible reallocation of members' time and resourcing as well towards matters that genuinely require a detailed written judgement rather than spreading that effort thinly across every other case, regardless of complexity. These changes will apply principally to the migration caseload because that is the tribunal's largest body of on-hand work and it's where the efficiency gains are most significant.

Importantly, the bill deliberately excludes social security matters in recognition that they already run through a distinct review process. It also excludes National Disability Insurance Scheme matters, veterans' entitlements and aged-care areas that so often turn on complex assessments of medical and personal circumstances and where the discipline of a written decision genuinely matters. Further exclusions can be made by regulation if experience shows they're needed.

The bill also requires migration and protection review applications to be lodged on a prescribed form. That might sound a little like a minor administrative detail, but anyone who has worked in this space knows how much tribunal time is lost chasing missing information that should have been provided at the outset. A prescribed form means the information the tribunal actually needs arrives up front and members can spend their time deciding cases, not tracking down paperwork. There are also a number of smaller efficiency amendments in this bill relating to document timeframes and to the president's jurisdiction across all areas of the tribunal's work. None of these changes are dramatic on their own and together they are about making sure the machinery of review actually works the way it means to.

The second substantive measure in this bill introduces identity verification requirements for applicants seeking review of prescribed migration and protection decisions. If an applicant fails to comply, the tribunal will be required to dismiss the matter. The detail of how, when and where the verification occurs is left to regulation, which gives the system flexibility as it's implemented. It also means this parliament retains the power to disallow these regulations if they don't operate as intended. I want to be direct about why this matters. A review system only retains public confidence if people believe the process is being used genuinely, that applicants are who they say they are and that they understand what they're actually asking the tribunal to do. Identity verification is a commonsense safeguard for that integrity.

But fairness has been built into this measure too, and that matters just as much to me. An applicant whose matter is dismissed for failing identity verification is not simply locked out forever. They can seek reinstatement and explain the personal circumstances—illness, language barriers, whatever the genuine reason may be—and the member hearing the reinstatement application can order they be given another opportunity to complete the process. Where a matter proceeds to the Federal Circuit and Family Court, the settings are appropriately different. Again, the court may dismiss proceedings for non-compliance and it retains a broader discretion than the tribunal to extend timeframes or dispense with the requirement altogether, and that distinction isn't an accident. It reflects the different constitutional character of a chapter III court exercising judicial power compared with an administrative tribunal exercising merits review. And getting that distinction right is not a technicality; it's what keeps this reform on solid constitutional ground.

Taken together, these are proportionate measures. They protect the integrity of the system without abandoning the person who has a genuine reason for non-compliance. They dissuade the frivolous applications without punishing the person doing their honest best to navigate a process that can be quite daunting even for those of us who once did this for a living. Barton is one of the most diverse electorates in the country. In Hurstville, Kingsgrove, Rockdale, Bexley, Clemton Park and Kogarah, I represent people whose lives are very much touched by this system constantly. Families navigating migration decisions, older constituents dealing with aged-care assessments—for many of them, English is not a first language.

For many of them, the idea of a tribunal is pretty scary and intimidating enough without wondering whether the person deciding their case got there on merit or on mateship. That is the trust this bill is trying to rebuild one practical measure at a time. It's the same trust that sits at the heart of good government generally: the belief that decisions are made properly and that when they're not there's somewhere to go. I have stood in those rooms. I've watched people's faces when a decision goes against them, and I've watched the relief when a process, however slow, finally treats them fairly. That experience is why I support this bill without reservation. It is not a perfect or a final answer. No single piece of legislation ever is. But it is a genuine, considered step towards a review system Australians can actually rely on.

Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That debate be adjourned and resumption of debate be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:36