Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Migration Legislation Amendment (Code of Procedure Harmonisation) Bill 2016 contains a number of amendments to the Migration Act 1958.

These amendments complement the amendments made by the Tribunals Amalgamation Act 2015, which merged the former Migration Review Tribunal (known as the MRT) and the former Refugee Review Tribunal (known as the RRT) into the Migration and Refugee Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (known as the AAT).

Currently, there is a code of procedure under part 7 of the Migration Act for protection decisions that may be reviewed in the Migration and Refugee Division and there is also a code of procedure under part 5 for migration decisions that may also be reviewed in the Migration and Refugee Division.

The separation of the code of procedure in part 5 and part 7 reflected the previous existence of the two former tribunals—the RRT and the MRT.

Now that the former MRT's functions and the former RRT's functions have been merged into the Migration and Review Division of the AAT, it is sensible and appropriate for part 5 and part 7 to be harmonised and streamlined into a consolidated part.

It will also assist applicants intending to lodge a review application, or who currently have a review on hand, with the Migration and Refugee Division of the AAT to have one consolidated part in the Migration Act to refer to for the code of procedure governing review. This is so regardless of the decision being a protection decision or migration decision, given that both may be reviewed by the Migration and Refugee Division.

The new consolidated part will be achieved by the amendments in schedule 1 to this bill harmonising the code of procedure in part 5 and part 7, into one code of procedure in part 5 of the Migration Act.

The harmonised code of procedure will preserve the provisions currently in part 7 that are specific to and necessary for the review of protection visa decisions and that are not currently provided for in part 5. This includes, for example, the provision prohibiting the publication of the identity of a protection visa applicant and their family members.

The harmonised code of procedure will not affect the rights of current and future applicants to seek merits review under the Migration Act. The new code of procedure will also not alter the decisions for which merits review is currently available under the Migration Act.

In addition, this bill makes amendments to clarify the operation of certain code of procedure provisions to ensure they are interpreted as intended as well as clarifying the notification requirements in relation to oral decisions of the Migration and Refugee Division of the AAT.

The amendments also ensure that the Immigration Assessment Authority (known as the IAA) can review fast track reviewable decisions together, and specifically provide that the minister may refer fast track reviewable decisions together if the decisions are in relation to fast track applicants who are members of the same family unit. It is important to note though that permitting the IAA to review the decisions in relation to family members together does not mean that the IAA is bound to do so.

The amendments will also provide that where those decisions are referred to the IAA together and the IAA then reviews those decisions together, a document given to any of the fast track applicants will be taken to be given to each of them.

This will improve the administrative efficiency of the IAA and promote a more effective and more coherent merits review framework for fast track reviewable decisions.

This is an important bill that will make the merits review system for decisions under the Migration Act simpler and stronger and complement the amendments made by the Tribunals Amalgamation Act 2015.

I commend the bill to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.