Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

I'm just looking at the facts, and the facts say that there's been a blowout of 2,000 protection cases in just over two months. That's what the facts are telling us. I refer to what the Attorney-General said on the record as justification for his decision to abolish the AAT:

The Albanese Government inherited an AAT that is not on a sustainable financial footing, that is beset by delays and an extraordinarily large and growing backlog of applications and that is operating multiple and ageing electronic case management systems …

The sad truth, though, is that under Mr Dreyfus's watch, under the Attorney's watch, expenditure has blown out to the point that your budget papers reflect a billion-dollar spend on the ART and we're getting this blowout in case numbers. All that's been achieved is a massive increase in the case load of more than 26,000 cases and an enormous blowout in wait times from 30 to 48 weeks. These processes are important, and it is important, as you said previously, that matters are dealt with quickly and fairly. The ART you have established and are attempting to fix now with this legislation has been an expensive failure, hasn't it?