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

In that case, for the Hansard, if I can, I will put on the record that the answer is seven weeks. Again, that's from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal annual report. We had a six-week average in the 2023-24 financial year, a nine-week average in 2022-23, a seven-week average in 2021-23, and we now have a situation where the current median time to finalise a protection matter in the ART is 233 weeks, or more than four years. That's the state of affairs that we're facing at the moment under the ART.

Minister, the issue I have is this. When the coalition was in power, we set up the IAA as an independent authority of just one senior reviewer and 26 reviewers. That small team reviewed 1,077 protection cases in a single year, with a median time to finalise of just seven weeks. Under your current arrangements, the protection case load before the ART has increased massively, and the median time to finalise is now more than four years. The proof of concept is there. Did the government consider re-establishing fast-track review processes, which are obviously sorely needed? Given the blowout in processing times under the ART, did you consider re-establishing fast-track review processes either in the development of the ART legislation or in developing this amendment bill which is currently before the Senate?