Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last annual report tabled before the Attorney announced his attack on the AAT, the 2021-22 annual report tells the story of a body meeting or exceeding its benchmarks. The user satisfaction rate to 30 June 2022 was 74 per cent, above the target of 70 per cent. That is quite extraordinary when you remember that the users are the people who bring a case before the AAT and who, in many cases, will be dissatisfied with the final result of their case. It continued to outperform that target in the 2022-23 financial year.

Now let's look at some of the other measures of the tribunal's performance. In relation to the decision-making quality, the 2021-22 proportion of appeals allowed by courts was below the benchmark of five per cent. In that same year, just 1.3 per cent of appeals were allowed from all appealable decisions. To put it more concretely, in 98.7 per cent of cases that went before the AAT in that year the matter was resolved in the way that the AAT said it should be resolved. It continued to outperform that target in the 2022-23 financial year.

In relation to transparency, in the final year to 30 June 2022, the AAT exceeded its performance benchmark of 5,000 decisions published. It continued to exceed that benchmark in the 2022-23 financial year.

In terms of clearance ratio, in the 2021-22 financial year, the AAT fell just short of its target primarily due to jump in post-COVID lodgements. Having been at a 119 per cent clearance ratio before the year 2021-22, it subsequently dropped to 95 per cent in the face of a sudden surge in lodgements. The number of lodgements dropped off significantly in 2022-23, and the AAT is back to the position of finalising more cases that are lodged.

In terms of output, which means the number of AAT applications and referrals finalised, in the year 2021-22, the AAT reached 90 per cent of its target. This was despite continued disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic such as lockdowns and other restrictions, which affected our operations in various locations during the reporting year. In 2022-23, after the pandemic, the output target was reduced, and it met the targets.

It was by no means a perfect body, with the timeliness of the decision-making remaining a concern. As we here on this side have said, we are not opposed to improvements in this area. But these are not the performance measures of a body for which the only reasonable course of action is to abolish that body.

Before concluding, it is worth putting a few things on the record in relation to the sham process that the government has adopted in relation to these bills. These three bills, the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023, the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2023 and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 2) Bill 2024, deal with a system that provides merits review under more than 400 pieces of Commonwealth legislation. There are interactions across the entire Commonwealth statute book that reach into virtually all portfolios. These changes that are being debated today impact on matters ranging from veterans' entitlements to FOI to small-business taxation and visa decisions. We are looking at 678 pages of new primary legislation, with 631 pages of explanatory material. This week, we are being asked to vote on a bill establishing an entirely new administrative review body, plus 33 schedules of amending legislation. There are consequential and transitional provisions that make changes across something like 248 Commonwealth acts, and the decisions that we make here today during this debate will directly affect 67,000 cases that are currently on foot before the AAT.

But, extraordinarily, we are in a position where we are being asked to pass these measures when the government's own legislation drives home the point that we cannot be certain this legislation is right and correct. The second consequential and transitional measures bill makes changes to the ART Bill. That's right: the government has already introduced amendments to the centrepiece of its own reform efforts. It doesn't make sense. The Attorney must have been distracted when he was finalising that legislation, because, just two months after introducing his primary legislation and before a single committee hearing had taken place, he introduced changes to the bill. These changes do not go to minor, inconsequential issues; they concern the way that the tribunal will deal with preventive detention orders in terrorism cases. In effect, the Attorney-General is admitting to unforced errors. It is a powerful indication that the ART Bill was not quite right, not quite correct or not quite finished when it was introduced. This reinforces our point that you shouldn't simply wave these sorts of things through without scrutiny, because if the Attorney-General is telling us that these two swings are needed then what else has he missed?

But it's not just us saying that. Let's look at the process and how we got to this point. Shortly after Christmas, the first two bills in this package were referred to the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, which gave stakeholders just a few short weeks—over the Christmas and New Year break, mind you—to make submissions. Many simply couldn't meet that time frame. The Law Council of Australia, Australia's premier representative body for the legal profession, had to ask for an extension. Here's what the Law Council of Australia said about the Attorney-General's abuse of the parliamentary committee process:

Whilst the Law Council is pleased to have obtained an extension to 2 February 2024 to lodge its submission, it remains very concerned that the Committee's truncated inquiry period will undermine or diminish the democratic and proper scrutiny of the Bills.

The Attorney-General should have taken this more seriously. When the legal profession is telling him that he is undermining the democratic and proper scrutiny of these bills, that's a very serious allegations and needs to be taken notice of. The Law Council went on to dismiss any arguments about urgency:

It is understood that the Commonwealth is seeking to establish the Tribunal as a priority, having first announced its intention to abolish and replace the AAT on 16 December 2022. However, the Law Council is not aware of any public commitment to establish the Tribunal by a specific date. In the circumstances, the Law Council queries why the Attorney-General has caused these significant Bills to be subject to such an expedited inquiry process.

They called out the 'limited opportunity to engage comprehensively with the bills' and were forced to take the extraordinary step of saying:

… views in this submission must be considered preliminary and subject to change …

Another point to record is that the House committee had just one hearing, for just two hours in total. The only witnesses that the committee heard from were the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Social Services. That's about 40 minutes per department—work that out. Really, is that sufficient time? If you share those 40 minutes per department between the government, the opposition and the crossbench, then you get about 13 minutes on such a serious matter. That's just over six minutes per bill. The committee didn't even look at the second consequential and transitional provisions of the bill. It only looked at two of the three bills that they were debating on that day. Any reasonable observer, I would suggest, would tell you that the House inquiry process was a sham and should not be regarded as an adequate scrutiny process.

Sadly, things are not looking much better in the Senate. You may have thought that the government would have learnt from the Law Council's warning that it was undermining the democratic and proper scrutiny of this legislation, but sadly it seems that this is far from the case. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee insisted on doing its job and set a time frame for inquiry that would, firstly, allow witnesses a number of weeks to consider and prepare submissions, would facilitate multiple committee hearings so that we as a parliament could take a proper look at whether these proposed changes work and are fit for purpose and, finally, would give the committee time to compile and finalise these reports into three separate bills and hundreds of amendments across the statute book.

The Attorney was furious about the committee doing its job, and we know this because he told us. In an answer to a dixer on 8 February he told us how disappointed he was that the Senate committee had insisted on performing its proper functions, describing it as 'disrupt and delay tactics'. He was angry that the Senate committee had refused to be bullied into cutting short its ordinary parliamentary process. This was despite the very clear warning from the Law Council that a shoddy and rushed process risked undermining democratic and proper scrutiny of this legislation and that there was no tenable basis for a rush. But, having lost the fight on the deadline, it appears that the government wants to ensure that no hearing actually takes place.

So far the government has agreed to just a single hearing, with 3½ hours for all three bills. There is every indication that all attempts to schedule future hearings will be resisted. It is worth illustrating what this means in practice, because the simple reality is that, as it stands, the coalition senators have been given just 10 minutes to ask the disability sector about these three different bills that will affect each and every one of them in the sector. The veteran sector has not been fully heard from at all. We have not heard about the FOIs. We have not heard about small business and their concerns. We have not heard from the countless other stakeholder groups who are directly affected by this legislation.

This is not a process that is being conducted in good faith. We haven't even heard from the Law Council. We call on the government to conduct these inquiries properly and not put this to a vote until those inquiries are completed so that any vote can be informed. The Attorney-General was an advocate for transparency while he was in opposition. Now it's time for him to put that into place and into practice.

I conclude that the coalition will not be supporting these bills in this place if they go to a vote this week, I can tell you that. The process has been a farce, and we are not prepared to sign off on any major reforms without appropriate scrutiny. We will reserve our position in the Senate, and I thank the House.

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

It's quite extraordinary that a coalition member should quote with approbation the Law Council of Australia, having ignored so many submissions the Law Council of Australia made about so many bills that the opposition brought forward when they were in office. The Law Council was generally supportive, and I was on this inquiry that was referred to by the member for Braddon, the inquiry into the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill and the consequential and transitional bill, which was chaired so ably by Susan Templeman, the member for Macquarie. She chaired that inquiry, and there was a report.

And this is not the first report; it's not the first inquiry. When those opposite were in power they engaged the Hon. Ian Callinan AC KC to complete a statutory review of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which was tabled in July 2019. That review found that the AAT was 'not always meeting community expectations, and workloads and backlogs were preventing the timely and final resolution of matters'. It made a series of recommendations, which those opposite squibbed. So, we are in a position where we're having to clean up the mess—and those opposite know this.

It's interesting that the member for Braddon talks about the fact that they're going to oppose this legislation, because three members of the coalition served on the committee which recommended unanimously that this bill be passed. There was no dissenting report at all from those opposite. The coalition members of that committee were: the member for Cowper, the deputy chair; the member for Hughes; and the member for Menzies. They did put a sort of clarification at the end. They could have dissented, but they didn't dissent at all. So, this is a unanimous report that recommends that this legislation be passed.

This legislation has a long history. The AAT also had some history. It was established on 1 July 1976 following reviews of administrative decision-making that took place in 1971. There was a need for a mechanism for external review of government decisions that was accessible, informal and relatively affordable. That was necessary. The Whitlam government tried to bring in this legislation. And this is one of the things that happened when Malcolm Fraser became the Prime Minister. A number of good things that were initiatives of the Whitlam Labor government were taken up by him, and one of those was the AAT.

I heard the member for Braddon talk about how we should be concentrating on cost-of-living issues—and we are. If only those opposite had actually asked questions in question time about it, it might show that they had some veracity or truthfulness about their concern about the issue. But they haven't. The member made out in his speech today that this is something that is almost esoteric, that it doesn't affect too many people. But if you have a look at this report—and I'd refer the member to pages 4 and 5—it includes a table showing how many people affected by decisions of government sought review. For example, in 2022-23 there were 41,037 lodgements in the AAT, 42,689 finalisations and 66,131 cases still on hand. If you add those numbers together, that's far more than the number of voters in any single constituency in this place.

A lot of Australians are affected by decisions of government—veterans' affairs, social security, migration et cetera. They have a right to have their cases dealt with expeditiously, fairly and impartially if they feel that they haven't been treated well by government decision-making. This is not an obtuse issue. It's not an issue that doesn't affect many people. It's a lot more people than are at the MCG on a Saturday to watch Collingwood play Carlton. It's a lot more than those going to see the Broncos play the Cowboys at Lang Park. This affects a lot of Australians. So don't give us lectures saying that we're not concentrating on issues that affect Australians. We're cleaning up the mess of those opposite. And the idea that somehow this wasn't even looked at, when former Justice Callinan did a review for the previous government in 2019—we announced on 16 December 2022 that we would abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and we did public consultation on this issue back in April and May of 2023. Guidance was sought from an administrative review Expert Advisory Group chaired by former High Court Justice the Hon. Patrick Keane AC KC, and it was engaged on across the government and the AAT. Consultation with a whole bunch of stakeholders was conducted in September and October 2023. So this idea that somehow the Attorney-General went into his office and got out his laptop and started typing, or took out his pen and starting writing, without consultation with the Australian public and those people who are affected is arrant nonsense from those opposite. It is rubbish! The government has engaged in a consultation process. In addition to this, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee will be examining this bill—as they often do in the other place—and reporting in July 2024. Yet there are these ideas that somehow we haven't looked at this bill; that it hasn't been the subject of community consultation; that, somehow, it doesn't affect many Australians—that it's an obtuse little issue that doesn't affect Australians.

It affects many Australians. So I listened to the member opposite, and he was saying that it's not really a very important issue and the government should be concentrating on something else. Yet, at the same time, he talked about there being so many issues, and said that we'd rushed this through, somehow, allegedly, and that it's going to affect many people. I couldn't understand the logic of those opposite; it was totally inconsistent.

And have a look at this report. There are over 60 pages in this report that deals with it. The Law Council suggested some constructive defining amendments and made some important comments. Generally, the submitters in this thing talked about the failure of the AAT and the fact that it needed reform.

So we have two bills before the chamber that are absolutely critical. They'll affect a lot of Australians. Maybe those opposite don't believe that government decision-making affects Australians. But we, on this side, believe that government is a force for good, and, when it's not a force for good, Australians have the right to seek to have those decisions reviewed and for that to be dealt with in an affordable, timely and fair way. That's why this legislation before the chamber today is so important. And that's how disingenuous those opposite are about this particular issue.

I'm proud to speak on this particular bill because it's an important bill. We're cleaning up the mess of those opposite. You could be a failed state LNP member in Queensland or candidate for this place, or an LNP former federal MP—the AAT was a sort of retirement village, a financial retirement home, for LNP and Liberal and National Party appointees and grandees, with 85 of them appointed. Even the Leader of the Opposition at one stage talked about how politicised the AAT had become—as if they'd forgotten they'd spent nine years over here politicising it.

So we are having to abolish the AAT and bring in a new system because it has really served its purpose and it needs major reform. Those opposite knew it because, three years before they got turfed out, they had a report that said it needed major reform—and they squibbed it.

So the bill implements all three recommendations from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee's report Performance and integrity of Australia's administrative review system; four recommendations from that royal commission that those opposite don't want to know about, the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme; and the government's response to two recommendations from the Rapid Review into the Exploitation of Australia's Visa System. So there's a long history to this matter—a long history, even before these bills have been debated. It's not true to say that all of a sudden it's come up and been foisted upon the Australian public. The bills were informed by extensive stakeholder consultation.

The problems at the AAT extend well beyond the absence of a merit based selection process under the former government. They failed. If they had stopped to think about who they had kept on appointing to the AAT, then this bill might not have been necessary. If the AAT had been managed better, this bill might not have been necessary. Many of the people appointed by those opposite had no relevant experience—no legal experience. Some of them were active lobbyists, and that was well known. We've inherited an AAT that's not on a sustainable financial footing; an AAT beset by delays, with an extraordinarily large backlog of cases and operating multiple and aging electronic case-management systems. It's the legacy of the mismanagement of those opposite.

There was an amalgamation of the AAT with the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal. The fact that there is an inefficient administrative system of review in this country comes at a real cost for tens of thousands of Australians every year. Cumulatively, well over 100,000 Australians are dealing with this system at any given time. These Australians feel abandoned by government. That's why people feel a loss of faith in government—because of decision-making.

The robodebt royal commission noted:

Effective merits review is an essential part of the legal framework that protects the rights and interests of individuals; it also promotes government accountability and plays a broader important role in improving the quality and consistency of government decisions.

Those opposite claim that they're Liberals. They should be in favour of individual liberty and the individual ability to stand up and argue a case against government. If they were truly Liberals, they'd be on the side of John Stuart Mill and those people that believe in individual liberty and want to support the little bloke or the little woman who wants to take on government decision-making. But they don't.

What we need is a new system in this country, and we're going to have it: an administrative review tribunal bill which establishes a much-improved tribunal that's fair and just; that resolves applications in a timely way, with little legal formality and at little expense; that is accessible and responsive to needs across a broad jurisdiction of law; that improves the transparency and quality of government decision-making; and that promotes public trust. That's crucial—you must have public trust in judiciary, in executive, in government and the legislature, and in administrative law in this country. You must have it. If you don't have it, people lose faith in government. A central feature of the new body will be transparent and merit based decision-making, with the appointment of non-judicial members—in stark contrast to the LNP mates of those opposite.

In recent years, Centre for Public Integrity board member Geoffrey Watson SC has said the damage to the AAT was too extensive to just replace the existing members over several years, so it's really necessary to start from scratch with a whole new body. That's what we found, as well—in that committee of which I am a member. Mr Watson was supportive of the government's approach and has argued that it will help restore integrity, openness and accountability and allow it to function independently of politics.

That's what has happened under those opposite. They politicised this whole process, and then they criticised it. The weird thing about it was how many times they stacked their mates on the AAT and then proceeded to criticise the decision-making that took place, on migration issues in particular, again and again. We saw it on the front page of newspapers. They'd say it publicly at press conferences. The great inconsistency: you put your mates on to get the decisions you want and you don't like the outcomes that you get.

The backlog was immense, and that's why we need to deal with it. This needs to be an ART that functions transparently and independently of politics. That's really, really important. It's important we also implement the recommendations of the royal commission into robodebt. By the way, I heard this from people over the weekend, and I heard it at my recent mobile offices. They want those recommendations of the royal commission to be carried out. People want royal commission recommendations to be carried out—just as we're doing. We've done it in terms of banking and in terms of aged care. With robodebt, it's necessary as well.

So this legislation picks up some of those recommendations and makes sure that we carry them out. People need faith in government. They don't need letters saying you owe a lot of money to the government when you don't actually owe it. This government opposite, when they were here—the government-in-waiting, as they think they are—knew very well that robodebt was wrong and that it was unethical and illegal. They knew about it, but they didn't do anything about it.

We're picking up recommendations from the royal commission here, and it's important that we do. That's why I'm so supportive of this legislation. Those opposite are a disgrace. They're disingenuous about this legislation. They know the system's not working. They knew it in government, they know it in opposition and they should be supporting the bill.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While I am the first woman to represent the electorate of North Sydney, I'm not the first Independent. Like many in my community, I'm proud that Ted Mack, the father of the Independent movement, once represented us.

A renowned advocate for greater transparency and accountability in government, Ted famously offered the following quote:

… government should be totally open to public scrutiny and elected representatives should enable people to not only participate in all decisions that affected them, but to ultimately find ways to have people make decisions for themselves … the very basis of democracy is that a decision taken by the public as a whole would be right more often than decisions taken by an elite group …

It is through this lens that, along with members of my community, I have reviewed the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2023, the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2023 and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 2) Bill 2024.

Australia's administrative review system provides protection for individuals from unfair use of public power, and it's essential for public confidence in government. Sadly, the current Administrative Appeals Tribunal, known as the AAT, is plagued by inefficiencies and failures. After years of abuse, this package of reform provides a much-needed opportunity for the government to rebuild public confidence in this process. Theoretically, we should all welcome this reform. It is the result of long-term advocacy from many across our communities. Yet there remain inconsistencies and challenges in the package that, without change, will continue to condemn people seeking redress under the AAT for visa or citizenship issues by ensuring that they know that to be a noncitizen is to be second-class in this country. These issues could be addressed through modest changes in the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2023, and these changes would strengthen the overall system by ensuring all people are treated equally under the law. For this to happen, this government must show they are prepared to do more than pay lip service to the very principles of international human rights law and show courage to lead us to a better place.

For over three decades now, the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia has tainted our international human rights reputation. Noncitizens, including those seeking asylum, refugees and the stateless, experience structural exclusion and intersecting barriers to accessing justice immediately upon entering Australia. These barriers include the impacts of trauma, language barriers, mental health issues, financial distress and cultural differences. In the pursuit of equality before the law, any reform to the administrative review in our country must account for this and ensure all applicants can equally access a fair and just review process.

While these bills have the potential to pave the way for a fairer and more efficient operation of Australia's administrative review system, in their current form they do not achieve that outcome. There are positive changes to be welcomed in them. They include the implementation of an independent merit based process for appointment and reappointment of members; the re-establishment of the Administrative Review Council; and the abolishment of the Immigration Assessment Authority and the fast-track process. In particular, the implementation of an independent merit based process for appointment and reappointment of members is welcome, as the previous process had become highly politicised, with the governmental politics of the day exerting far too strong an influence on the decisions of those appointed to the AAT. In fact, data from the Kaldor Centre Data Lab reveals the policies of the political party of government at the time a tribunal member was first appointed to the AAT had a significant effect on the outcomes of their decision-making in protection visa cases in particular. Ultimately, the new system should encourage applicants who have the relevant knowledge, skills and expertise for such a position to apply with confidence, knowing that any lack of party connections will not be a hindrance to their potential employment.

Complementing this reform is the introduction of the Administrative Review Council. This body will contribute to the independence, transparency and accountability of the new system. If done well, it could play a key role in reviewing complaints about members and in collecting and analysing data on the operation of the tribunal.

Further, the abolition of the Immigration Assessment Authority and the fast-track process will see an end to a system that is cruel, inefficient and heavily politicised. Both were established to allow a review of the refugee status determination decisions made under legislation passed to deal with what is known as the legacy caseload of asylum seekers who arrived in Australia as unauthorised maritime arrivals between 2012 and 2013. But both failed in their duty to provide fair and effective review of asylum applications, with little done to expedite or resolve the legacy caseload. In February 2023 over 12,000 cases remained unresolved. In truth, many of the people refused under the fast-track process are indeed refugees with strong claims for protection, but they have not received a fair, thorough or robust assessment from the IAA. I echo calls, then, for this government to introduce a policy to ensure that those previously refused under the fast-track process receive a fresh review. I also reiterate my calls for a royal commission into our offshore processing of asylum seekers. At some point we must turn a light on this long-term government policy, to not just hold to account those who've been instrumental in the destruction of literally thousands of lives but also ensure past mistakes are not repeated. Ultimately, while these bills seek to strengthen integrity and improve accessibility to the ART, I hold serious concerns that they fall well short of that goal.

The design of this legislation means that many of the benefits being introduced broadly will not apply to the Migrant and Refugee Division. Indeed, the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill maintains the carveout of a separate, more restrictive procedural code for the Migration and Refugee Division in the Migration Act 1958. The decision to retain this code undermines a lot of the good this legislation could do as it creates a disparity in the treatment of migrant and refugee applicants compared to applicants generally, preventing them from equality under the law. This just seems incomprehensible when viewed within the self-described ambition of this reform to establish a unified, cohesive tribunal with flexible powers and procedures that best meet the needs of applicants.

This tribunal is intended to play a vital role in protecting the rights and interests of members of our community. It will be required to pursue that objective by providing administrative review that is fair and just; resolves applications in a timely manner; is accessible and responsive to the diverse needs of people involved; improves the transparency and quality of government decision-making; and ultimately promotes public trust and confidence in the tribunal. Yet, the carveout of separate and more restrictive procedural codes for migrant applicants contradicts these very principles. The justification for such a carveout is on the grounds of efficiency, and it is true that the AAT has historically faced a major struggle in processing the backlogs of migration and refugee applications. But, rather than what is currently proposed, these applicants have incredibly high needs that require dedicated measures to improve accessibility not carve out and hinder them. This differing treatment of some is not reflective of meeting diverse needs; rather, it is discriminatory.

As evidenced in the Refugee Advice and Casework Service submission to the inquiry on this bill, migrant and refugee applicants typically experience barriers to accessing justice that others do not. In this context the distinction between citizen and noncitizen releases the ART from obligations to comply with procedural fairness for all. Ultimately, the shortcomings of this separate procedural code can be broken down into three core areas. The first of these is the inconsistency in the time limits for migrant applications. Where this legislation generally allows the ART to extend the period during which an applicant may apply to the tribunal for review of a decision, it provides that this time extension does not apply to reviewable migration or protection decisions. The only other options available to these applicants would be to apply for a judicial review in the Federal Court or to seek the exercise of the minister's non-reviewable, non-compellable discretion. Both channels are currently overwhelmed and come at a significant cost in terms of time and resources.

The second shortcoming is the codification of the natural justice hearing rule for migrant and refugee matters, which when compared to the common law approach for others does not make sense. In fact, it significantly increases the resources required by the tribunal's members and staff, including additional training. Thirdly, it should be deeply concerning to all of us that this bill retains provisions that restrict the right of migration applicants to be represented. I cannot be clearer when I say that the exclusion of legal representation for migration and refugee cases in contrast to all other cases at the ART is wrong. People with migrant and refugee applications are often unaware of the legal requirements of their appeal and often need assistance to explain their case to a decision-maker. The lack of support for migrant and protection applicants in accessing legal assistance and representation is not only bound to hinder the success of the case; I believe it is morally corrupt.

Unhindered access to legal assistance for migrant applicants needs to be brought into line with others generally in the ART. At the same time, there needs to be adequate funding so that applicants who cannot afford legal assistance and representation are able to do so. Ultimately, my community joins me in arguing that the substandard treatment of migrant and refugee applicants is neither fair nor just, and we must do better. For these reasons, I will be moving a second reading amendment to the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2023 when it is brought forward at the end of this cognate debate.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will be granted leave to continue, if necessary, when the debate is resumed.