Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Many speakers in the debate on this bill have spoken about what occurred over the last nine years of the former government, and I don't think I need to rehearse that much travelled ground again. We have provided in the bill, strengthened by the amendments I've brought to the House today, for a merit based appointments process for all future appointments to the Administrative Review Tribunal. It's of course the case that any future parliament might choose to again change the method of appointment to this tribunal, but our government is committed to a merit based appointments process. We legislated for merit based appointment processes for the Australian Human Rights Commission, in the first bill I brought to this parliament. We are legislating for merit based appointments processes to be required to be used for all future appointments to this Administrative Review Tribunal should it pass through both houses of our parliament.

By way of further reassurance, I would point to the record of our government since coming to office in that our government has appointed 115 new members to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal by using a merit based appointments process not required by the statute at present. Having a mandatory merit based appointments process in future for the Administrative Review Tribunal will cause our government no difficulty at all. I'd perhaps be able to point to the fact, regarding those 115 appointments made to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal using merit based appointments processes since the last election, there has not to my knowledge been a breath of criticism of any of the 115 quality members who have been appointed to serve on the tribunal.

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