Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In late 2022 the Albanese government announced its decision to abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the AAT, and replace it with a new federal administrative review body. This is a significant reform. The AAT, soon to be the ART, is an important part of the relationship between the Australian people and their government. It's an important part of transparency and justice. It's an important part of Australians being able to seek justice or, at the very least, a review of decisions made about their lives, their rights and their entitlements. These are decisions made by large government bureaucracies and public servants. They are seeking reviews of decisions made by the NDIA, Services Australia, the Department of Social Services and immigration. These are decisions made where there is a significant imbalance of power between the applicant, an individual; and the decision-maker, often an anonymous public servant in the giant bureaucracy with a lot of power.

But the former government took this valuable review process away from Australians. They undermined it. They undermined its integrity. They undermined the faith the Australian people had in the institution. Frankly, given what we now know, with the repeated decisions against the government that were exposed in the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, it isn't surprising that they didn't want an unbiased umpire to be able to review their actions. So they undermined the AAT by appointing as many as 85 former Liberal MPs, failed Liberal candidates, former Liberal staffers and other close Liberal associates without any merit based selection process. Some of these individuals had no relevant expertise or experience. The former Liberal-National government fatally compromised the AAT, undermined its independence and eroded the quality and efficiency of its decision-making. In doing so, they took away the rights of Australian individuals to seek an unbiased review of decisions made about them and their lives.

The Albanese government inherited an AAT that is not on a substantial financial footing. (Quorum formed)Itis beset by delays, as we just heard from the member for Wannon. Sometimes there were delays of years to get into the AAT to get a decision reviewed, because the AAT had an extraordinarily large and growing backlog of applications. It was not helped by operating on multiple ageing electronic case-management systems. People were forced to live with incorrect, unfair decisions or were in doubt about what the decision would be for years while waiting to get into the AAT. They were forced to live with the unfairness, the trauma and the poor outcomes, to keep their grievance alive for when they eventually got their call to come in. As the member for Wannon talked about previously, under their regime those seeking asylum would be waiting up to 10 years for cases to be resolved. He mentioned how this encouraged bad actors, bad migration agents, to promote this as a way for people to get into the country and try and claim asylum, even though they had no right to it. This was under their regime. This is what those delays actually meant. People came into the country knowing it would take 10 years to resolve their asylum claim—so that was their way in.

This is the legacy of the former government's mismanagement of the amalgamation of the AAT with the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal. This comes at a very real cost to the tens of thousands of people who rely on the AAT each year to independently review government decisions that have major and sometimes life-altering impacts on their lives. These include decisions such as whether an older Australian receives an age pension, whether a veteran is compensated for a service injury or whether a participant of the NDIS receives funding for essential supports. These are the stories I heard when I campaigned in the 2022 election. These are important decisions for individuals, and it should be important to the government that they are made correctly as well. For the previous government, it obviously wasn't. But the Albanese Labor government was elected on an integrity platform, and this is part of integrity—integrity with our dealings with Australians.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, on request from the Attorney-General, conducted an inquiry into the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023 and the associated legislation. The committee scrutinised the bills, including through public consultation and hearings, to ensure they achieved the government's policy objectives and do not have unintended consequences. I'd like to thank particularly those who put in submissions for the consultation and those who attended the hearings. Their quality, experience and expertise was invaluable to the committee's consideration. The bills are intended, amongst other things, to provide for a mechanism of review that is fair and just, timely, informal, inexpensive, accessible and responsive, that improves transparency and quality of government decision-making, and that improves public trust and confidence in the tribunal. Australians should expect no less of us.

The bills re-establish the Administrative Review Council, retain the jurisdiction of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and make essential modifications to the operations of the merits review framework. They promote consistency and simplicity by repealing special arrangements that overlap, duplicate or unnecessarily displace core provisions of the ART bill. The bills will implement all three recommendations of the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs' inquiry into the performance and integrity of Australia's administrative review system. There are four recommendations of the royal commission into the robodebt scheme and two recommendations of the Rapid review into the exploitation of Australia's visa system. It is clear that the AAT has lost the confidence of the Australian public and there is broad support for establishing a new administrative review regime with the bills' stated objectives.

The proposed reforms create a new tribunal—the Administrative Review Tribunal. It will be a self-correcting system with several backstops to ensure that government and ART decisions are made correctly and transparently, that defective decision-making by government can be held to account and that systemic issues will be escalated and responded to effectively. These features include the Administrative Review Tribunal, which will be independent of government and will monitor and support the integrity of the administrative review system. The new Tribunal Advisory Committee and the guidance and appeals panel will review the operation of the ART, respond to emergency issues and help ensure correct and consistent decisions are made. The new code of conduct and performance standard requirements, stronger reporting obligations and a requirement for professional development for members and staff further support the bill's objectives.

Several submitters suggested the ART bill should require the use of a selection panel in the appointments process for ART members. While that's not strictly necessary, because the government has indicated that such matters can and will be provided for by legally-binding regulations, the committee encouraged the government to give further consideration to adopting that suggestion.

The provision of legal aid, particularly to vulnerable applicants, will be important to the ART's success in meeting its policy objectives. The committee is aware that legal services to assist applicants to the AAT may have limited capacity to support any further demand generated by the transition from the AAT to the ART. The committee strongly supported the government acting on the findings of the upcoming review of the National Legal Assistance Partnership.

While noting the proposed new administrative arrangements for migration and protection matters do not go as far as many would like, the committee was of the view that the consequential bill meets the intended policy objectives of streamlining the administrative reviews process while maintaining the current principles of administrative review. Together with the other measures announced by the government, the arrangements in the bill will help address the crippling delays in the Migration and Refugee Division of the AAT.

The committee recommended that both bills pass the House and encouraged the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee to give further consideration to matters raised by submitters and then report on this as part of its inquiry.

Obviously, the transition from the old AAT to the new ART is of concern to those who currently have matters under consideration or in the queue. The government has made it clear that AAT cases that are on foot when the AAT is abolished will be transitioned to the new body automatically.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to restoring trust and confidence in Australia's system of administrative review, beginning with the establishment of a new administrative review body that it is user focused, efficient, accessible, independent and fair.

This government was elected on a platform of integrity. It was just one of the points of difference between us and the previous government at the 2022 election. The implementation of a national anticorruption commission was a major platform, but only one part of a completely new way of working for the Australian people with the Australian people, different to the ways of the previous government, which formed the basis of so many complaints from my constituents in Boothby. Cleaning up the AAT is another part of this.

A central part of the new body will be a transparent and merit based selection process for the appointment of non-judicial members. This is in stark contrast to the former government, who appointed as many as 85 former Liberal MPs, failed Liberal candidates, former Liberal staffers and other close Liberal associates without any merit based process.

The tribunal's objective will be to provide an independent mechanism of review that is fair and just, and that resolves applications in a timely matter, with as little formality and expense as is consistent with reaching the correct or preferable decision. It is accessible and responsive to the diverse needs of parties, improves the transparency and quality of decision-making, and promotes public trust and confidence in the tribunal.

In the 2022 election campaign I heard so many complaints and horror stories from the people in Boothby about their experiences with the AAT. I don't want to hear those stories again. I want Australians to get a fair go, to be treated fairly under their government. Under those opposite—robodebt, mishandling of NDIS and the immigration delays I mentioned earlier leading to scams—it was not good enough. Never again. I commend the bill to the House.

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