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

For the assistance of honourable members who are perhaps not familiar with the way review of social services decisions currently operates in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, we have the situation that most parties to a review of social services decisions—which include certain social security, family assistance, student assistance, paid parental leave and some child support decisions—have an automatic right to seek a second tribunal review of a decision after it has been reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for the first time. It's often referred to as tier 1 and tier 2.

The Administrative Review Tribunal Bill introduces improvements to the conduct of tribunal review of social services decisions so that the correct or preferable decision can be reached during the tribunal's first review, minimising the burden that seeking further review has on applicants. The settings for the reinstated second review for social security matters, which is the effect of the government's amendments, would be harmonised with other jurisdictional areas in the tribunal where possible and will broadly mirror existing settings for the second tier of review in current legislation. If a person is dissatisfied with a tribunal decision on a social services matter, they may seek a second review of that matter at the tribunal.

The improvements to the first review in the current bill would be retained. These settings would enable the tribunal to direct the decision-maker to participate in some proceedings where the tribunal deems it relevant and appropriate. It would ensure that matters can access dispute resolution and single-party case conferencing at the first review and would allow the tribunal to publish deidentified social services decisions to improve the transparency of tribunal decision-making while protecting the privacy of applicants. These improvements would assist the tribunal to make the correct or preferable decision at an earlier point of review while also keeping tribunal review of social services decisions inquisitorial, non-adversarial, informal, timely and accessible.

So, in essence, we are seeking to make improvements to the first tier. With these amendments we're going to preserve—because it seems to be the wish of the sector for the time being, because of the need for further reform in Services Australia—the possibility of a second tier of review. But there will be a very substantial improvements in the first tier.

It's notable that, if the ability of the tribunal to publish first-tier decisions had existed at the time of the robodebt scandal and disaster, it would have been possible for the Australian community to know, at a much earlier stage, about the unlawful decision-making that the former government engaged in. There were some 90 decisions made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in tier 1, not one of which was published, not one of which was appealed by government, and all of which made clear that the former government had engaged in unlawful conduct, and, because they didn't have to be published, the public were unaware of that scandal for a lot longer than should have been the case.

The second review for social security matters would replace the appeals function of the guidance and appeals panel that we're providing for, for the whole of the ART jurisdiction, where a party can seek a review of a tribunal decision on the basis that there may have been a material error, or the matter raises an issue of significance to the administrative decision-making. The president would retain a power to refer a matter, on their own initiative, to the guidance and appeals panel, at either the first or second review, on the basis that it raised a matter of significance to administrative decision-making. That will allow the guidance and appeals panel to exercise its function to review significant social security decisions while preserving the rights of applicants to access a second review with as little cost and formality as possible. So we have acceded to what advocates have sought, which is: for the time being, we're going to persist with the second tier—it's something that people are used to—but meshing it with what we hope are very much improved processes.

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