Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The filing fees for the Federal Circuit Court were, if one were to do a comparison over time, quite low for many years compared with those imposed in the AAT and in the Federal Court or the Family Court. As part of the 2020-21 budget, the Morrison government is providing $35.7 million in funding to provide additional judicial and registrar resources, primarily for the Federal Circuit Court's migration jurisdiction but also in the family law jurisdiction.

I'll delve into the detail of that so that it's not just the broadbrush answers I gave earlier. I'll give you some precision, Senator Watt, since it has peaked your interest. That will support an additional three general federal law judges—when I say 'general federal law' I'm talking about the migration work predominantly—accompanied by two additional registrars, and one additional family law judge, which makes up the four, accompanied by five additional registrars, as well as serving to increase the base funding for the court. This increase in judicial and registrar resourcing will allow the court to resolve more matters every year, which will assist in addressing the backlog in migration matters and reduce the time families with family law matters spend before the courts after separation.

The additional resourcing is offset by an increase to the application fees, which I referred to a moment ago, for migration litigants in the Federal Circuit Court. As I mentioned a moment ago, currently the Federal Circuit Court application fees for migration matters are significantly lower than the fee that is imposed, for instance, in the AAT. This change will adjust the Federal Circuit Court application fee from $690 to $3,330 so that it is set at the midpoint between the fees in the lower AAT and the higher Federal Court fee. We'll continue to make sure that applicants have access to the court system by maintaining a full fee exemption where paying the fee would result in financial hardship, and it will be accompanied by a new partial fee exemption set at half the full rate, which will deal with many of the circumstances referred to in the commentary given by Senator McKim a little bit earlier.

By way of example, of the more than 25,000 migration lodgements in the AAT in 2018-19, only 3.6 per cent sought a fee reduction, and less than two per cent of those qualified for one. Importantly, the revenue from that change, as I said at the outset, is being reinvested in the courts to improve the efficiency and the experience of court users, including to provide assistance for families navigating a separation and for applicants of migration matters.