Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Patrick, those decisions which are reviewed by the AAT are, in my understanding, genuinely truly administrative decisions. I think the AAT is a separate question from the discussion we were having previously. In relation to the AAT, the concept of stretching merits review of what are truly administrative decisions—because that's what they broadly do—to ministerial policy decisions on significant public and foreign policy issues is not something that I understand the AAT to be either equipped for or designed for. I think that would undermine the bill. It would, as I said, in the context of this discussion have the potential to damage our bilateral relations and to undermine our global interests. The Treasurer, for example, is not required to explain his decisions on national interest on the FIRB applications given the sensitivity, and the same goes for these sorts of decisions. What we are contemplating would be covered here in the bill. The way in which it is drafted is more about error of law or failure to take account of relevant factors and an error which infects or affects the decision-making—obviously acting outside of the scope of the bill, for example. It doesn't require reasons for the decision to be able to pursue that. If the minister makes a decision that's not authorised by the act you can take that to court without knowing the reasons for the decision. So I think the AAT's role is for truly administrative decisions and is not something which is necessarily appropriate to apply here.