Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill and the two related consequential and transitional provisions bills. I commence my address to the Senate by posing this question: what is the price of a dirty deal between the Attorney-General of Australia—who, prior to the election, took it upon himself to spruik transparency from the highest mountain at every opportunity—and the Australian Greens? The bad news for the Australian taxpayer is that I can actually answer that question for you. How much do you think a dirty deal to put through a bill of this nature—an incredibly complicated bill, which has not yet been properly scrutinised by the Australian Senate, despite our role as the house of review—would actually cost the Australian taxpayer?

Bear in mind, colleagues, that there is a cost-of-living crisis that the Australian taxpayer is currently experiencing under the Albanese government, yet those on the other side constantly say, 'We are putting in place the following cost-of-living measures,' and the Australian Greens cannot help, every time they stand up, talking about what they would do if they were in government. What is the price of a dirty deal between the Attorney-General of Australia, Mark Dreyfus, and the Australian Greens to push through a pet project of his? Senator Cadell, you were saying it would be a few million dollars? I'll be honest with you, in a cost-of-living crisis, I would have also said it couldn't be more than a few million dollars, yet last night, when the budget papers were delivered, all you needed to do was open up the relevant budget paper and you would see that the price of the dirty deal—wait for it, Australian taxpayers, because you are paying for it—is $1 billion.

The bill that we have before us is a $1 billion bill. So I say to all of the small-business people out there, to all of the hardworking Australians who pay tax, to all of the other business people in medium businesses and large businesses: for getting out of bed every day and for going to work and doing what we need you to do, which is prosper, grow and create more jobs for Australians, this bill represents a billion dollars of your money. The question that you have to ask yourself is this: for a billion-dollar Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus special, what do you actually get? I ask myself the same question. There are two simple questions. One is, 'What did Australians have before these bills?' The other is, 'What do they get afterwards?' This bill will go through tomorrow under a guillotine. Bang! The government and the Greens will stop debate. There will be no scrutiny, and it will be pushed through: one billion dollars with no scrutiny. The questions are: what did Australians have before these bills and what do they get afterwards?

In the first instance, before these bills, Australians had what is known as an 'administrative tribunal' that reviewed government decisions. After the billion-dollar deal between the government and the Australian Greens, what Australians get is an administrative tribunal that reviews government decisions. Hold on! Did I write that incorrectly? No, I didn't. What they have now is what they actually get after this bill goes through. That is a $1 billion imposition on the Australian taxpayer for the same system to be implemented but by a different government. Secondly, before these bills, Australian could apply for a merits review of a government decision that affected them. Afterwards, Australians can apply for a merits review of a decision that affects them. The only difference is this: you will pay much, much more for it. So far, I'm not sure the Australian taxpayer is getting a billion dollars worth of changes.

Before these bills we had a body of tribunal members, roughly half of whom were appointed by a Labor government. Afterwards—and this is where Mr Dreyfus's billion dollars actually gets him a bit of bang for his buck. Before these bills we had a body of tribunal members, roughly half of whom were appointed by a Labor government. Guess what you get for a billion dollars, colleagues? You get a body appointed entirely by a Labor government. I would have said, 'Forget everything else—bang, straight in with Labor.' A billion dollars, and that's what you get—a body appointed entirely by a Labor government. I have to say congratulations to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus for everything he said prior to the election on transparency. For everything you are saying now, in terms of criticisms of the former coalition government, well done. You have delivered a body that does the same thing, and Australians can still do the same thing in relation to the body, but the difference is the composition changes. For a billion dollars you get a body appointed entirely by a Labor government.

I really hope some journos might actually look at these bills and might actually question why the Australian Greens and the Labor government would spend a billion dollars to get a body that is entirely appointed by the Labor government. You'd be forgiven for thinking this may be one of most expensive rebrandings of a public service body in Australian history. As I said, it is a little ironic that the Australian Greens were big today, saying not enough cost-of-living relief had been given in last night's budget, yet they have joined with the government—bang, a billion dollars, quite possibly the most expensive rebranding of a public service body in Australian political history. Seriously! I hope journos pick up the phone to their offices and say: 'Why do you on one hand say there is not enough cost-of-living relief? On another, it's a billion-dollar name change.' Seriously!

In terms of the coalition's views on the bills, we've always said we are not opposed in principle to reforms to Australia's system of administrative review. I said when I was in government that there are areas where there is absolutely a legitimate need for reform and that improvements could be made. When you look at the context in terms of what the Administrative Appeals Tribunal does, it is a body that provides reviews of government decisions made under about 400 different pieces of Commonwealth legislation. This is an incredibly complex body. By necessity its remit is complex, wide ranging and reaches into virtually all portfolios. As I said, we have always been upfront. We are not opposed to changes. But, I tell you, not properly scrutinising this body and not properly unpacking the billion dollars—the Australian Greens have decided, 'It's a billion dollars, it's taxpayers' money; we're more than happy to guillotine it and put it through.' I have a problem with that.

The question I now have for every Australian taxpayer who is thinking of voting Green or thinking of voting Labor, for every mum and dad out there who is going to have to stretch to pay their car insurance, their mortgage insurance, for their food when they walk into the supermarket, their gas bill or their electricity bill—how is that $300 going for you? 'The $300—seriously! It was about 18 months ago that I needed that.' Do you think it is worth $1 billion of your money to establish a new body that does the same thing as the old one? I would have thought the answer to that question is quite possibly 'no'.

When you look at where the money is coming from, the budget papers tell us some of it comes from the existing appropriation of the AAT, some of it will be paid for out of the court fees the government charges you to go to court and some of it—this is the interesting bit for anyone listening in—will be from the NDIA, Veterans' Affairs and Social Services. Remember, the budget papers were handed down last night. Quite frankly, I'd be calling the Australian Greens and saying, 'Hold on, I thought you were meant to be standing up for us, and yet you are prepared to utilise money coming from the NDIA, Veterans Affairs and Social Services to pay for a billion-dollar vanity project by the Attorney-General of Australia.' If you're a veteran or a person with a disability, or someone—like so many Australians every single day, millions and millions—who has to deal with Centrelink or Medicare, I really hope you think the service that you are getting from these government agencies is good enough that the Labor government, Mr Albanese, and the Attorney-General of Australia, Mr Dreyfus, can afford to take money away from them to build a shiny new tribunal. That is a huge portion in new funding.

We can explore the dirty deal, because I think it is very important. Perhaps Senator Larissa Waters would like to explain to the Australian parliament and to the taxpayer why it is better to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a shiny new bauble—the tribunal—rather than on women fleeing domestic violence? Senator Watt, the question I have on behalf of Western Australians is this: why are we spending more money on a shiny new tribunal than we are on the transition for live sheep exports? For Senator Pocock, how many more affordable houses could have been built in the ACT but for this new tribunal? As people know, governments have to make decisions about where their priorities lie. The government stands up every day and says to the Australian taxpayer, 'We know you are doing it tough.' What they forget to say to them is, '… because of the decisions that we have made since we came into government.' How does it then stand here today—a dirty deal done with the Australian Greens to rush this bill through with little or no scrutiny; it will go through with a whole lot of other bills tomorrow under a guillotine? It's $1 billion for a shiny new bauble.

I was reflecting on the meaning of the word 'folly' in the English language. 'Folly' has two meanings. The first is 'a lack of good sense, or foolishness'. That is the term that most people, if you say you are going on a frolic, or a folly, would know—a lack of good sense, or foolishness. The other is a term that is sometimes used in architecture. It describes a costly, extravagant building constructed primarily for decoration but suggesting some other grand or transcendental purpose. Let's face it, there is a very real risk that, in passing these bills, the Senate is committing to a folly in both senses of the word.

What I worry about is, in particular, the lack of scrutiny in relation to this bill. If I look at the process to date, a process is important, because in the Australian Senate we are the house of review on behalf of the millions and millions of Australians. They expect us to do their jobs. Let me very quickly tell you, in the remaining time, that the Attorney-General of Australia has, we know, an obsession with transparency. What transparency actually means when it comes to the Attorney-General of Australia is secrecy and avoiding scrutiny. I think that is now almost an accepted fact.

The three bills here have 692 pages of new primary legislation, 760 pages of explanatory materials. The changes affect something like 248 Commonwealth acts. The decisions we make on this bill will directly affect the 67,000 cases—or around that—that are currently afoot before the AAT. Yet we had this bizarre and truncated sham committee process. I won't even bother to discuss the con job that happened in the House of Representatives.

Let's have a look at this. In the Senate, we have had just six hours and 55 minutes of committee hearings, per the program set out by the government. That is less than a single average workday to scrutinise a $1 billion project. This means the committee has spent less than 40 seconds per page. Senator Scarr knows this because he did an outstanding job on this committee, and he will speak on this bill shortly. But 40 seconds per page? You're a fast reader, Senator Scarr. On behalf of the Australian taxpayer, good on you. But what a complete joke. This is a process that has not been conducted in good faith. It makes a mockery of our committee system and simply highlights the utterly cynical and contemptuous approach the government and parts of the crossbench have taken on this issue. It is a sham and quite frankly it deserves to be treated as such.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate that we will be supporting the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024 and related bills. It is fair to say that this bill has had a rocky path to getting to its final stages in the Senate. The Greens believe it is critical for public accountability and for fair, effective and impartial oversight of the Commonwealth's administrative action that the parliament gets this reform right. It is for that reason that we joined with, I think, every other political party in this chamber, except for the government, to insist that this bill went off to an extensive inquiry earlier this year. I think the referral happened in February, and it reported earlier this week. We had extensive submissions and we also had the benefit of submissions that were put to a very rushed and wholly inadequate House of Representatives inquiry that the government, for their own reasons, thought was a sensible idea to hold over the Christmas and new year period. We have heard from a series of critical stakeholders, not just me but other senators and other engaged members who have had repeated meetings with stakeholders to try and get this reform right.

I want to be clear that, when it was initially introduced to parliament—in the last sitting week of last year, a ridiculous time to introduce a reform of this scale—this bill, which replaces the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, was not supportable. It should not have been waved through this chamber and it should not have been waved through the other place. It had significant defects that, unattended, would have undermined the new tribunal's independence and removed important rights for thousands of marginalised people who want to challenge social security entitlements or family support payments, and it had a series of other untested provisions in it. It also retained a significant number of seriously unfair elements for people seeking asylum and for people challenging migration matters. For those reasons, we were not willing to just push it through.

There was a fairly aggressive campaign, from the government and from the Attorney, for us to just wave it through with minimal scrutiny. The Attorney and the government said that they'd had detailed consultations in the 12 months prior to the introduction of the bill, that they'd had their own review council, that they'd consulted with stakeholders and that, therefore, we as parliamentarians should say, 'Fine, we'll wave it through.' I don't think any independent upper house should ever do that—just take the government at their word and just take whatever consultation the government did to be adequate. I've got to tell you that, when we spoke with innumerable stakeholders, many of them said that, yes, they had been consulted by the government—they'd been asked; they'd had meetings; they'd sat around and raised their concerns in the baldest possible terms; and the government had sat on the other side and nodded. But then, when they saw the actual bill introduced, none of their concerns had been addressed. The unfairnesses that they saw in the legislation were retained in the legislation that was introduced into parliament at the end of last year.

I will give you just one example. Probably one of the most egregious examples was that the Centre for Public Integrity, who have been very clear about the need for any new tribunal to have the highest levels of integrity, had had a look at and been very critical of—for good reason—the series of political appointments that the former coalition government had made to the AAT. They'd done analysis of it, as had a number of other stakeholders. One of the primary reasons for introducing this legislation, the government said, was to establish integrity in the appointment process. Because the previous government appointed all their political mates, they had to wipe the slate clean and start again—that's what the government said. Then when my office, on behalf of the Greens, read the bill and the Centre for Public Integrity read the bill and looked at the integrity measures in the new bill that was introduced at the end of last year, they were discretionary. The Attorney could or could not apply the integrity measures for the appointment of new tribunal members. Who in their right mind thinks you can put in place optional integrity measures when the whole political basis for you doing this reform is the need for unambiguous integrity in appointments? Stakeholders couldn't believe it.

When it comes to the tier 1 and tier 2 review rights that people have when they're challenging decisions on social security rights or family assistance payments that are coming out of Services Australia—previously Centrelink—we heard from countless stakeholders and individuals that those two-stage review rights were absolutely essential for them. Because there's such asymmetry of power between Services Australia and applicants in that space, often people are facing enormous stresses if they have had social security benefits or family assistance cut off. They're often in economically and socially distressing circumstances, and the only way they have a fair chance of trying to get their entitlements back is if they have this very informal initial stage, where it's largely them and the tribunal. That's often the first time ever they understand why the government says their benefits are being cut. Then, once the issues are fleshed out in that very informal initial first-tier process, if they succeed and get their benefits re-established, that's absolutely the best outcome. But, in the thousands and thousands of cases where they don't, they can then go to a community legal centre. They can then go to other supporters. They have the information to hand that explains why they didn't get their benefits. A two-tier process means that they can then put forward the information they need to to get a fair hearing.

When you look at the annual reports of the AAT, there are 10,000 or so of these cases working their way through the system every year. The government's initial bill just abolished that process. It just abolished it. Again, the stakeholders said that they'd raised this issue repeatedly with the government and said, 'Don't do this.' The government consulted with them, they sat across the table with them, they read their submissions and then they ignored them.

So thank goodness we didn't just wave this through. Thank goodness the Senate insisted on a lengthy inquiry. Why is it being brought forward now? Why is it being brought forward in May? We had an inquiry that could have extended through to July. Why is it being brought forward now? It's being brought forward now because those two issues that I've just articulated—the optional integrity matters and the tier 1 and tier 2 matters—have been addressed by amendments that have now been presented and put through in the other place. We tested those amendments in the inquiry and the answer we got back from stakeholders was, 'They work.' They reinstate the two-tier process in a near like manner and they make the integrity measures mandatory. And, having tested them in the inquiry, that addresses a number of our concerns.

The bill also makes some improvements for administrative review matters. One of the things it does is it abolishes the IAA, this deeply unfair fast-track process for migration matters, which has created thousands and thousands of unfair outcomes, denying legitimate asylum claims from people, and is notorious for its injustice. It will be abolished with this bill. We think that's a significant reform and worth getting in place in a timely fashion.

The structure of decision-making within the ART will also have some quite useful procedural improvements with this bill. I think the jury is still out on how the guidance and appeals panel will work. I have some personal concerns about how those guidance decisions will be implemented by tribunal members and the extent to which it potentially impinges upon the independence of tribunal members. But I heard from an array of stakeholders in the inquiry who said they thought, on balance, it was a positive reform. They thought it would provide greater consistency without unduly or inappropriately binding tribunal members. I'm happy to accept what I thought was a weight of well-informed opinions in that space that would suggest that the guidance and appeals panel is supportable. I still have some personal misgivings about how it will operate, but I accept the weight of very informed and capable opinions that said that will be a positive reform.

I think there are concerns about the extent to which the president has an array of administrative tasks, and they can be quite powerful administrative tasks that are normally exercised by a non-judicial officer in a tribunal like this. But, again, they broadly got support. I think there's a watching brief on these things, which is why it's going to be essential to have a review.

But I also note that while these reforms, which are meant to create a uniform, positive, single kind of architecture for administrative appeals in the Commonwealth sector, broadly provide a uniform architecture—which I think has improvements on the current AAT architecture—they do it for everybody except for people challenging migration, asylum and refugee determinations. The bill retains an array of deeply unfair elements in administrative challenges to determinations for migration and refugee matters, elements like: deeply unfair three-day time limits in which to bring an application and/or seek a review; other short and unfair time limits of sometimes seven days; and provisions that require the tribunal to make adverse inferences against applicants if they raise evidence late, often in circumstances where they have compelling reasons why they brought evidence to the table late.

All of this, of course, produces countless jurisdictional challenges in the courts, alleging jurisdictional error by the tribunal, which costs the Commonwealth heaven knows how much in having to defend it and delays proceedings indeterminably. Why didn't the government seize this opportunity and actually create a genuine, uniform system? I think the answer is that both Labor and the coalition continue to believe that there should be an unfair and cruel system for people challenging migration and refugee matters.

I'm glad to see that the majority report recommended these matters be reviewed by the Administrative Review Council, and we think that's a positive recommendation. We're glad we've had a sensible negotiation with the Attorney in this space, and we think that to get it reviewed by the Administrative Review Council and for that to be done as a matter of urgency once the Administrative Review Council is established is a good outcome. But the bill, by itself, is a very real missed opportunity.

I believe the second reading amendment has been circulated in my name, which addresses that matter in some detail. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes:

(a) serious ongoing concerns about the differential treatment of applicants within the refugee and migration division including:

(i) shorter timeframes to bring applications or appeals,

(ii) the lack of capacity to extend times, and

(ii) the lack of access to legal assistance; and

(b) that these concerns together work against the principles that are said to underpin this bill of uniform, fair and ready access to just decision-making".

I look forward to further debate on the bill. It's not perfect. The process is inadequate, but we've got to a point where it's supportable.

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

I want to just make a few introductory remarks and acknowledge a few people in this process. Senator Shoebridge certainly made a very positive contribution to the scrutiny of this bill, the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill. I'd also like to make it clear that the remarks I make are no reflection whatsoever upon the staff of the Attorney-General's Department who, I think, obviously worked tremendously hard in relation to this bill. When questions were asked of them during the inquiry process, they were obviously very much across their brief, and they responded in a very timely fashion to the questions put on notice to them in a very abbreviated process. So I'd like to place that on the record.

I'd also like to acknowledge—Acting Deputy President Sterle, you've been in this place far longer than I have, and you'll probably recognise the resonance of this point—that the majority of the committee are subject to pressures in relation to timing. They are subject to the input of the executive government, and, no doubt, there are some things beyond their control in terms of how matters can be abbreviated. I'm sure that you've come across those situations in your time here, Mr Acting Deputy President. I want to make clear that my comments in this regard aren't a reflection on the government members on the committee, who I think were diligent in terms of the inquiry process.

Having made those introductory comments, the first point I want to talk about is process. I think Australians, including those sitting in the public gallery, have a reasonable expectation that, when legislation—which is hundreds and hundreds of pages long, and has hundreds and hundreds of pages of explanatory memoranda—is introduced into this place, the senators in this house of review should have sufficient time to closely scrutinise the legislation.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And a consequential amendments bill that's longer than either.

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

And a consequential amendments bill that is longer than either. Now, we simply didn't have the time to scrutinise this legislation as well as I would have hoped or probably others in this place would have liked, and that should be a matter for reflection. This isn't a comment just made by me as a senator in this place. There was an abbreviated House of Representatives committee process that was instigated just before Christmas, with submissions due on 18 January. Is that a good idea? There are hundreds of pages of legislation, hundreds of pages of explanatory memoranda—it's very complicated legislation—and you start the inquiry in mid-December with submissions by mid-January. What's wrong with that! It was actually held up as a positive that this bill was subject to an inquiry in the House of Representatives and an inquiry in the Senate. We would have been better off having an inquiry instituted in the Senate back in mid-December—having one inquiry that provided sufficient time. But, unfortunately, that, no doubt, is out of the hands of the majority government members on the committee and is in the hands of the Attorney-General. So the Attorney-General can reflect upon that.

My second point is that this Senate asked the committee to report by 24 July. That's over two months away, and the reporting day was brought forward on very short notice—again, I'm not reflecting on the majority members of the committee—such that I as the deputy chair had one clear business day to look at the majority report. One clear business day—I had Friday. I got the majority report late on Thursday. I had Friday to look at it, and I had to get my report in to the secretariat by 9.30 on Monday morning. I did my best, and I did my best to cover as many issues as I could that weren't covered in detail in the majority report, but that is not a satisfactory process.

There are matters which should have been dealt with in the majority report—really substantial matters, which I'll get to—which weren't touched upon in detail in the majority report. From my perspective, again, that is far from best practice.

I had asked for certain witnesses to be called to public hearings, but, because of the lack of time which Senator Cash referred to, I didn't even have time to ask questions of witnesses who I'd asked to be called. I mean, that's embarrassing! It's embarrassing for us as an institution. And I apologise to those witnesses and I do thank them for the submissions they made, because they were detailed submissions.

The second point I want to make is around the case for reform. I'm glad—I really am glad—that there are people in the public gallery who are hearing this. I like an audience, Acting Deputy President; don't we all! This is what the government said in justification of this reform. I want to read these statements out and then I want to tell you what the objective evidence is. See if you can pick the difference. The majority report says:

The regime—

the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—

had lost the confidence of all stakeholders and the merits review system was badly in need of a complete overhaul.

That's what the majority report says. And the Attorney-General said:

… the AAT no longer enjoys the trust and confidence of the Australian community it serves, and is not fit-for-purpose.

Those are pretty dramatic statements, and I would have thought that, if you're prepared to make those statements, you should also be prepared to consider the objective evidence. That evidence would include how the people who actually use the AAT, the Australians who go through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, judge the AAT themselves—their satisfaction rates. But that wasn't referred to at all in the majority report. Those in the gallery and those listening can go to the AAT's annual report and look at the evidence themselves. It wasn't even referred to in the majority report. It won't be referred to in any of the speeches, I'm sure. I'm not Nostradamus, but I'm sure it won't be referred to in any of the speeches from government senators.

I want to put this on record. In the annual report for the year ending 30 June 2023—at the time when the Attorney was attacking the AAT, saying that it had lost the confidence of all Australians and was a disgrace—the overall result for user experience with the AAT was a rating of 72 per cent. Now, does that sound like an organisation that had 'lost the confidence of all stakeholders'—a rating of 72 per cent? And the KPI was 70 per cent.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the representatives.

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

Then, in terms of representatives—the lawyers and people representing people who go through the AAT—the user satisfaction rate was even higher. So amongst those people, the lawyers—the ones you'd expect to have more experience of dealing with the AAT, as part of their job—the satisfaction rate was even higher!

Then we get to this KPI with respect to fairness. I would have thought this was a key point. On fairness, on the courtesy and respect shown by members and registrars, on the opportunity given to parties to present their case and on overall perceptions of the fairness of the review and the independence of the AAT—on this key performance indicator—what were the results? The satisfaction rating of users was 77 per cent. So 77 per cent said they thought that it was fair, they were treated with respect and it was independent—77 per cent. And then, of their representatives—the lawyers and other people, advocates, who appear regularly—it was 82 per cent. Does that sound, on any objective basis, like an organisation that has lost the trust and confidence of all stakeholders? I don't need to answer that question. But the disturbing thing is that data is not even referred to in the majority report. They don't even try to deal with that issue. There's not even an attempt to deal with that issue.

I want to make a few points on a number of issues that weren't dealt with in the majority report. It's a shame that a number of these issues weren't dealt with. There wasn't time. One of these issues—I'll touch on a few of them—was in relation to constitutional issues. There were some very good submissions made in relation to whether the President of the Administrative Review Tribunal should be a justice of the Federal Court. To put it in simple terms, the concern is that that mixes a court with a tribunal, which is part of executive government. Should there be that mixing? Does it raise too many constitutional issues? There were some very good submissions made by Mr Graham Connolly of council, and there was quite a reasonable response to that from the Attorney-General's Department. But it is an open question, in my mind, as to whether it is best practice, having considered the matter, to have a judge of the Federal Court as the president or whether it might be better to have a retired Federal Court judge or a retired senior member of the AAT as president. I think that's a reasonable open question.

The next point I want to make is around costs. There were very good submissions made by a whole range of stakeholders that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal should have the discretion in exceptional circumstances to award costs to an applicant. That is especially true, given that we're introducing this additional layer, which Senator Shoebridge referred to, in the Guidance and Appeals Tribunal. You might have a situation where someone applies to the AAT and wins their case, and it's thought, 'We're going to elevate this to the Guidance and Appeals Tribunal because we want the Guidance and Appeals Tribunal to look at this case; it could set precedent, and it might be usable for the broader public for it to be elevated.' I strongly believe, in that situation, the costs of the applicant should be, in some way, reimbursed, because their case has been used for a public good.

There are situations where Commonwealth departments, the bureaucracy, don't necessarily follow what we refer to as the model litigant rules.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, no!

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

I'm not trying to be a comedian, Senator Shoebridge! I could follow Acting Deputy President Sterle's example. He's got better material than I do! Bear in mind, there are situations where Commonwealth departments don't follow the model litigant rules, and that means they don't necessarily conduct themselves as they should. They're dealing with a private citizen. You've got a private citizen against a big bureaucracy. If the government department doesn't do the right thing, I think the average, ordinary, everyday Australian deserves to get their costs. That's my view. They do that at state tribunals. I don't know why we're not doing that at the Commonwealth level. That's my last point in relation to cost.

The Attorney has been on the record stating his concerns with respect to a particular cohort of members who were appointed to the AAT under the previous government. He's given particularity, precision, with respect to the number of members appointed by the previous government; he said up to 85. That triggers a concern in my mind as to whether those members, when they apply to become members of the ART, are going to be treated fairly. Please know—and I touch upon this in the majority report. Some of the evidence which we received in terms of processes show the panels are populated with some very eminent former judges, which gives one some confidence. But please know that this is perhaps the first test of integrity of this process.

I generally believe this was unnecessary and unworthy—the loss of office compensation direction of our independent Remuneration Tribunal being overridden by this bill. Our independent Remuneration Tribunal has independently decided that, when something like this happens, this is what someone who loses their office should be paid, and this bill is introducing a different compensation scheme. I don't think that's appropriate. One of our witnesses, a professor of administrative law, said that that's bad public policy. I don't think parliamentarians in this place should be determining the remuneration of officeholders of Commonwealth entities. There's a reason that we have the independent Remuneration Tribunal. I think it's quite unseemly that their independence is being overridden by this bill.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024 and the associated bills, which relate to the replacement of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal with a new administrative review tribunal, are long overdue.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has developed a reputation for inefficient and delayed decision-making, holding up the highly emotive process of considering mostly visa reviews and applications. The appointment process of tribunal members has been less than transparent, with many appointments being clearly politically based and with many appointees being barely qualified for their positions. That has raised a number of questions and a lot of talk. The new tribunal will offer transparent appointments based on merit and will ensure that decision-making will be less questionably based on perceived biases or lack of understanding of the issues. That's a clear issue in the profession. Positions will be advertised and appointments made based on record and performance at an interview. Applicants must have relevant knowledge, skills and experience, and their qualifications need to be stated.

A significant problem in considering the bills, though, has been the time involved in assessing the voluminous amount of material—something that previous speakers Senator Shoebridge and Senator Scarr both mentioned. That is particularly so in terms of accessing the voluminous amount of material in the context of the huge number of consequential amendments that need to be made to more than 138 acts and the consideration of the impact of these changes. That's no light task; it's not a five-minute task.

It's been suggested that the new bill does not adequately offer persons with immigration challenges enough access to legal support when presenting their case for review. The bills reintroduce the Administrative Review Tribunal. This is generally considered a good move as it can assist in avoiding long and expensive court actions. It's hoped that the Administrative Review Tribunal will be sufficiently resourced to avoid the enormous backlogs that have prevented timely and final resolution of primarily migration and refugee matters. It's been said that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal merits review system was failed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which did not function effectively, efficiently or transparently. In 2022-23, more than 19,000 migration and refugee matters came into the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This represented 46 per cent of all applications that came into the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. There were over 54,000 matters still outstanding at the end of the financial year. It's hoped that this backlog will be more effectively dealt with by the new Administrative Review Tribunal.

I need to point out that the mass of material within these bills that we've had to go through has been difficult to take in at short notice. Sadly, this is becoming a standard practice of this Albanese Labor government, making it difficult for crossbenchers to efficiently and, sometimes, effectively perform their functions. We heard about the hoops that Senator Scarr had to jump through. That's not acceptable. Senator Shoebridge also mentioned the same problem. The process of developing this bill and getting it through scrutiny has been catastrophic, as one of them said. We have also seen a number of bills guillotined under the Labor-Greens-Teals-Senator Pocock coalition. That coalition has been pushing things through this parliament, suppressing orders for the production of documents and guillotining debate. We've had bills with enormous consequences for this country—some of the most far-reaching ever—rammed through this parliament with not one word of debate. I'm talking now particularly about the digital identity bill, which went through recently. That bill was amended quite substantially, and there was not one word of debate about the bill, nor about any of those amendments.

So the process of coming to where we are with the Administrative Review Tribunal was flawed. Senators Scarr and Shoebridge echoed that. But the changes are needed. As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, my team and I have weighed the pros and cons. Based on all of this, I somewhat reluctantly decided to support the bill. Having listened, though, to Senators Scarr and Shoebridge, who are lawyers and whom I respect, I will be reflecting and may change my mind. But, at the moment, we are highly critical of the government's process in developing this bill and putting it through what amounts to less-than-perfect, inadequate scrutiny. I do say the changes are needed at the moment. I reluctantly support the bill.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak about the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024 and related bills and ask the question of why we're debating them this afternoon. It seems quite extraordinary that, out of nowhere, we seem to have a deal that's brought on this group of bills. And, yet, I cannot for the life of me see any urgency for doing it today. I can't see how these bills can possibly be urgent enough to be the subject of a change to the order of hours for the day. But here we are. We have a government that, every time they can't manage the chamber and put their legislative workload through at the appropriate time, go and talk to their mates the Greens down the other end of the chamber and do some deal on something. So we come in here and have the conventions of this chamber completely thrown out the window because it suits them—because all of a sudden Mr Dreyfus in the other place decides he wants his bill pushed through this place today. So the conventions of good and consistent government, conventions of government that have stood the test of time, all get thrown out the window simply because they just decided they can, and they have some friends in this chamber who are happy to vote with them to let that happen. One of the things that I learnt a very long time ago is it's much better to be consistent than convenient—because convenience will always catch up with you one day when you're a hypocrite.

But the most egregious part of this bill is that we are in a cost-of-living crisis. Even the other side today admitted this when the Minister for Finance was questioned during question time. We saw the Treasurer being questioned and we have seen the Prime Minister being questioned. There is absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind in this place that there is a cost of living crisis facing Australians today. Every Australian knows that they're facing a cost-of-living crisis, because it's hurting them in their pockets.

What we've got before us here is $1 billion that is about to be spent on a piece of legislation that has no real purpose. Nothing of any substance will change with this change of legislation. In fact, we'll get an 'R' instead of an 'A'. So we'll end up with the 'ART' instead of the 'AAT'. Other than that, there is no substantive change apart from patting the ego of an Attorney-General who wants to put his name on something with a billion dollar tag attached to it. Every Australian should be asking the question of what a billion dollars has bought them in this legislation. As I said, right now we've got the AAT, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. At the end of this passage of legislation, assuming these bills go through, we'll have the Administrative Review Tribunal. That doesn't seem to be worth $1 billion to me.

Before these bills, under the existing administration, Australians could apply for a merit review of a government decision that affected them. After the passage of these bills—guess what?—Australians can apply for a merits based review of a decision that affects them. The difference will be, though, that they'll pay more to get that decision. Before this decision that's been put to us today is made, roughly half the tribunal members were appointed by the Labor government—existing members appointed since the last election. After these bills pass, assuming they do, the body will be entirely appointed by the Labor Party. So you would have to say that this has achieved only two things. It's a very, very expensive rebranding exercise where they've changed the word 'appeals' to 'review'. And we've ended up with a situation where, absolutely blatantly, the Labor Party have stacked out an organisation entirely with the people they wanted to put there. That is not the way you run executive government. That is not the way you run the country. These are conventions that have stood the test of time. You don't be political about these sorts of organisations. You put people on them that have the skills and experience to serve on them.

What we've basically got today is a billion-dollar expenditure on absolutely nothing, right in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I think Australians should be asking if their government speaks out of both sides of their mouth. On one side, they go out there and try to spruik the rhetoric of last night's budget, talking about how they're dealing with cost-of-living pressures, but at the same time they're quite happy to completely burn a billion dollars for a vanity project for the Attorney-General. It is absolutely disgusting.

Let's also be very, very clear: the opposition also accepts that, in the 600-plus pages of legislation we have before us, there are probably some very good things. Nobody ever should say that legislation can't be improved, particularly legislation that's been in place for a considerable amount of time. We should always be open to reforms that make things better. Where there is a legitimate need to reform, we're quite happy to make sure that those improvements are made. We're talking about 400 different pieces of legislation or in excess of that.

The AAT has been around for 50 years. It is a process. I think it is completely reasonable that we have a look at it. The AAT also deals with such an extraordinary range of different pieces of legislation, be it in relation to migration, the national disability scheme or social services. There are so many different things the AAT has to deal with. It does seem very sensible that, at certain points in time, we look at how we can improve this legislation.

That part of this legislation, obviously, the opposition would be entirely keen to support. But there are so many complexities in a scheme of this size. We would question the need to shove this through this place today. Obviously, tomorrow it will have its neck chopped off under the guillotine that has become such a commonly used tool by those on the other side. I think they should call it the Albanese guillotine government, because that's what they seem to do with just about every piece of legislation. They don't seem to be interested or can't manage the time of this chamber.

There's a key question for every Australian out there today when you're struggling to pay your rent, mortgage or power bill, or when you have to brace yourself to go into the supermarket to buy your weekly grocery shop because you simply know it's going to hurt so much more than it has ever hurt before, because prices just continue to go up. At the same time, the Australian government thinks it's okay to spend a billion dollars on next to nothing.

Make no mistake—despite the small amount of money that will come through the process of people paying for reviews and through some appropriations to the AAT, most of the money that goes towards these billion dollars is new money. It's money that has to be found. It's money that goes on the bottom line. It's money that isn't paying off Australia's debt. It is money that is not actually benefiting Australians at all. If you gave Australians the choice about what they want to spend a billion dollars on, I can pretty much guarantee you that nobody would say they want to spend a billion dollars on changing the AAT to the ART.

The most egregious thing about the absolute blatancy of what's going on here is the Labor Party seeking to put all its own mates on the AAT. Make no mistake. Of the people on the AAT—even those that were appointed by the coalition government in its previous term—some are really eminent people with extraordinary qualifications. They are people who I think anybody would be happy to have presiding over the review of a decision that was made by a government department in relation to an issue that was before them. The list of people who are appointed to the AAT is published. Anybody can, at any time, look at the skills and qualifications of those people who sit on the AAT. These are some really eminent people that the Attorney-General wants to purge from the AAT without any thought whatsoever about the value proposition they provide, simply because they happened to be appointed by the coalition. This is a political witch-hunt of an extraordinary nature, and I think the Attorney-General should be called to account as to why he thinks his political influence over what should be an independent body is an appropriate use of his time and appropriate behaviour for the highest law officer in the land. The highest law officer in the land is seeking to politicise an independent review body. It is absolutely outrageous.

If any government previous to this—particularly a coalition government—had tried to act in this way, you can imagine the outcry from the other side. But they're quite happily able to bring this in here, and with their friends down at the other end of the chamber they're going to throw out a whole heap of eminent people simply because they happened to be appointed under the coalition. We're talking about people who have master's degrees. We're talking about people with first-class honours degrees. In fact, I think there are a couple of University Medallists that are currently operating as officers of the AAT. We've got decorated military officers, ex-defence people, people who have headed up government departments, public servants of the highest standing—I think we've even got the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner and a chair of the Accounting Standards Board. We're not talking about people who have no qualifications; we're talking about people who have exactly the qualifications that you need to undertake reviews of decisions.

The fact is we are standing here today with a rushed process that doesn't allow us adequate time to scrutinise the really important measures about review and reform to make sure that the systems that are in place are appropriate and fit for purpose going forward. That has all been thrown out the window. We're not going to have a thorough look at that, because we're going to have to shove this through. We're spending money that the government simply doesn't have. If the Australian public actually knew what was going on here, I think they'd be absolutely horrified about the prioritisation of this particular bill, on the government purses—at the waste of time here in the Senate today, when it should have been dealt with appropriately somewhere else, and at the lack of consultation—which is, I must say, a hallmark of just about every piece of legislation that's comes in this place from the other side. They're not particularly keen, unless they're worrying about stitching up a deal with someone, to have proper scrutiny of this. You have to kick and fight to get anything sent off to a committee and, invariably, they stack them or don't invite the witnesses you want, just to make sure they get the biased outcome they want for the legislation.

We have a government here who are quite happy to completely undermine the principles of the democratic system of this country simply so they can get their outcome. I've got to say, it's a very sad reflection on them, because for many years we have operated this place as a two-chamber parliament that actually respected the conventions, and we got the right outcomes because we went through the processes. The processes were put in place to make sure we have robust government and robust scrutiny. Therefore, we get good legislation, and good legislation means Australians are governed by good laws. This place seems to have forgotten about that. Those opposite and those down the other end of the chamber can't care less—it's all about a little petty win. They're not worried about what consequences their decisions have on the broader Australian public.

Where we are at the moment with these three bills—clearly, we wouldn't be standing here today under a change of orders if we hadn't had a deal done between the government and the Greens—means that we are going to have a whole heap of changes. We're going to force through 692 pages of primary legislation and 760 pages of explanatory materials, and we're going to shove them through here without much thought. There are 67,000 cases that are currently on foot before the AAT. I'd really like to know what provisions have been put in place to make sure they aren't affected. I think this is a very sad day. We have had a process that we all relied on that has not been undertaken in good faith.

The unintended consequences of this will be here for everyone to see in the future. I'd say to those opposite: before you actually decide that you're going to chop this off before it's had appropriate scrutiny, think about the unintended consequences on the people who are involved. Think about the unintended consequences of what would happen if, in the process of making this rushed change, you made a mistake and decisions that came out of the ART, when it's formed, were not right.

It reinforces our point—and I just want to reinforce this before I finish my contribution—that we must never shy away from scrutiny. Scrutiny is our friend, and scrutiny always delivers a better outcome. We all might think we know everything, but we don't. More eyes looking over something always makes for a better decision. I condemn the government for this action.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I mean, what can I say? Labor, what are you doing? This is an example of the modern era. Call me old-fashioned but, when I was growing up, my mother and my grandmother used to teach me to repair and recycle. Indeed, that is an ethos that many in this day and age are trying to get society back to. People are railing against fast fashion, people want to reduce unnecessary waste and, importantly in this age of cost-of-living pressures, people want to reduce spending. But not this Labor government—no. They are happy to throw out the old to bring in the new without even knowing whether the new will actually be better or not. It's like having that comfy old couch that you've moved from house to house. You know it's comfortable, but it's starting to look a bit worn. Instead of reupholstering it at a fraction of the cost, Labor are taking it to the tip and then rushing off to Harvey Norman for a bright new one without even sitting on it first to see if it's appropriate. That is the waste we are seeing with the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024, the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2024 and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 2) Bill 2024.

Let's look at what we're doing today. We had an Administrative Appeals Tribunal that conducted independent merits reviews of administrative decisions made under more than 400 Commonwealth acts and legislative instruments. According to their website, the most common reviews related to some of the most sensitive issues we have in our society: child support, workers compensation, family assistance including paid parental leave and social security matters, taxation, migration and veterans' entitlements. And they worked. In the 2022-23 financial year, according to their annual report, the AAT published 5,000 decisions, but that was just the published matters. They handed down 21,625 decisions, and they finalised 42,862 matters before them in just one 12-month period. They had a clearance ratio of 104 per cent. That's 100 per cent plus four—more than 100 per cent. In fact, in the last financial year, the AAT met or bettered five out of the six measurable outputs. To me, over 100 per cent is like a high distinction or a merit or an A plus or something. Yet, despite this track record, the Labor government are taking it to the tip so they can build a whole new, bright, shiny Administrative Review Tribunal which will conduct independent merits reviews of administrative decisions made under more than 400 Commonwealth acts and legislative instruments. What? That's right: 'We had an operating AAT, but now we're going to spend a billion dollars to establish an ART.' That's a billion dollars for a new letterhead, probably a fancy new logo and a new appointments process. 'But, surely,' the people watching along at home are saying to themselves, 'the government has justification for this spend. There's got to be more to it.' Ordinarily, you would think that a decision to abolish such a body would be based on poor performance, but I've just outlined that that is not the case here.

We've also heard, and some of my colleagues have mentioned, that there is concern from the government that some of the appointments to the AAT had—wait for it—associations with the coalition. Shock horror—that someone with an understanding of politics may also have the skills required to participate on the AAT! The old AAT had some 340 members. Some were working full time. Most were working part time. Of those, 160 were appointed—since this government came into play—by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. About 180 were appointed prior to the 2022 election, and, according to Labor's talking points, as many as 85 of those were associated with the coalition. Dreadful!

Apparently, when the old AAT was abolished, the 160 members appointed by the current Attorney-General were retained to carry on existing work. The remaining 180 members are not guaranteed an ongoing appointment. Why not? Are they not qualified? Let's see. Of those on the uncertain list, as my colleague said earlier, we have people with doctorates in law and with master's degrees from some of the world's leading universities. We have decorated military officers, public service medallists, police officers, lawyers and people who have served on state or territory tribunals. Tell me they're not qualified. I can't see that they're not qualified—but hang on. Sorry, I forgot maybe they have been associated with the coalition. Well, excuse me.

When I read that, I shared the concern, but then I went to the Australian Public Service Commission, just to check. According to the APSC website:

6.4.3 Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation prohibits discrimination against a person on the ground of political opinion.

To be fair, the Public Service Commission does counsel about having regard to potential conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest and the expression of opinion on social media, and it urges caution. But it also says:

6.4.1 APS employees may participate in political activities as part of normal community affairs. They may also join, or hold office in, political parties.

Commonwealth public servants can even stand for and be elected to local government office. If they run for this venerable place—as we know from the former constitutional crisis—they can't hold a public service office while campaigning after the issuing of the writs or as they sit in this place, if they are successful, but doing so cannot preclude them from being considered for a future role in the APS once their candidature or political tenure has ceased. So, if it's okay for public servants to have political associations—you can't tell me that membership of a political party or running for a political party is not association—then why does an association preclude someone from being appointed to the ART in the future? Or is it only those with a conservative association? Ponder that.

Let's not forget that, back in February last year, Katy Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, announced a review of all public sector board appointments, claiming that they were going to restore merit to the process and stop political allies from being handed lucrative positions. Maybe I won't mention the appointment of Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell's mate to a trade and investment commissioner role and Australian Consul-General San Francisco role last year, or the fact that that said mate was a former Labor senator who went on to be a Labor staffer who didn't apply for the role he was appointed to—and was appointed over and above a senior female public servant with years of experience in a relevant portfolio. No, I won't mention that, because Labor don't believe in appointing people with political associations to run for plum roles.

Let's actually look at what we have before us. We've got three bills to formalise the abolishment of a system to provide a merits review process and to formalise the establishment of a system to provide a merits review process, at a cost of $1 billion. We've got three bills that will establish the Administrative Review Tribunal that will review decisions in relation to over 400 Commonwealth acts—basically, across nearly every Commonwealth portfolio—that have had woefully short scrutiny. The Labor-dominated Senate committee that scrutinised these three bills spent less than a whole working day scrutinising the bills.

This lack of transparency and scrutiny is from a government that promised a new age of openness and transparency and yet, in practice, is expert in secrecy and avoiding proper scrutiny. The rushing of this and the lack of scrutiny are reminiscent of—what did we see tabled on Monday?—the 'how not to answer questions on notice' manifesto which was provided by the Prime Minister's office to every Public Service department. As to this government, their modus operandi, their lack of openness and their lack of transparency, we've heard from Senator Shoebridge and Senator Roberts—and they're not two people who are usually singing off the same hymn sheet, but we've heard from both of them tonight that the scrutiny of these bills has been clearly and woefully inadequate.

I want to thank and commend my colleague Paul Scarr who, on that committee, put in a power of work, as well as extra work in his own time, and his contribution tonight showed just how deeply he understands this issue. His concerns about the attacks by the Attorney-General on the existing AAT are shared by all of us on this side. Senator Scarr's concerns about the majority report—which conveniently ignores much of the evidence that was provided to the committee and which recommends passing these bills—are shared by all of us on this side. And those concerns alone should be enough for these bills not to be supported by this chamber.

Added to that, there's the waste—the sheer and utter waste—of spending a billion dollars of taxpayers' money to abolish a functioning body and replace it with effectively the same body, just with new appointees. We'd better run a microscope over those new appointees and make sure not one of them has had any association with the Labor Party. If that is our measure—that you can't have an association with a political party—we'd better run a microscope over the new appointments. A billion dollars was spent on new letterhead, a new logo and new appointments.

Was the previous AAT perfect? Probably not, but it could probably have been reviewed and repaired, for far less upheaval, far less risk and far less cost than what will be achieved by passing these bills in this place. So, for the sake of Australian taxpayers and for the sake of sensible government, we cannot pass these bills tonight. Let's go back to review and repair.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When we're looking at very complicated legislation like this—the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024, the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Bill 2024 and the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 2) Bill 2024—we need to ask ourselves: 'What's the purpose? Has the case been made for the reforms that have been put in front of us?' I'm not intimately familiar with the work of the AAT, but I am broadly familiar with it, and I have read the committee's report looking into the legislation and also the dissenting report provided by my colleague Senator Scarr.

I happen to know a number of members of the AAT, both full-time and part-time members, including some with Labor connections and credentials and some who've worked for the coalition. I know all of them to be hardworking and diligent. We need to remember that the AAT body, which has been with us for some 50 years, has over that time developed quite a complex and detailed level of jurisprudence and a high degree of specialisation in some of the topics it considers. As it operates at the moment, there are specialist parts of the AAT that deal with particular matters. So I think we should be hesitant before we propose a wholesale reform, to recognise the expertise and value we might be losing.

If you have a look at whether the case has been made for a new tribunal, I think we need to start by looking at the tribunal's performance. If you look at the AAT's annual reports, which are tabled in the parliament and are subject to audit by the Australian National Audit Office and oversight by other bodies, they overwhelmingly tell a story of a body that is performing well—not perfectly but well. Indeed, I think many parts of the government, the Public Service or the executive would be pleased with the sorts of metrics that the AAT reports in its annual statements. The user experience rate, for instance, was 72 per cent for the year to 30 June 2023. This is the level of satisfaction that people who use the AAT report having in that body, and bear in mind here that often applicants to the AAT will leave frustrated or disappointed with a decision. So the fact that you're getting a satisfaction rating or user experience rating of 72 per cent, above the target of 70 per cent, is quite extraordinary.

If you look at the decision-making quality, at whether the AAT is taking decisions that are sound in law and firmly based in fact, in 2022-23, the year that was covered in the AAT's last annual report, the proportion of appeals allowed against AAT and IAA—Immigration Assessment Authority—decisions was just 2.1 per cent, well below the benchmark of five per cent. If you translate that into actual decision-making, in 2022-23 the AAT handed down some 21,625 decisions—quite a prodigious workload—and appeals were allowed in just 324 cases. So, in the overwhelming majority of cases—almost 98 per cent of cases—the overseeing judicial bodies concluded that the AAT's reasoning in law and fact, and their decision-making, was sound.

In relation to performance more broadly, to getting through a case load, the AAT met its performance benchmark of 5,000 decisions published in the financial year to 30 June 2023. The clearance ratio, the number of cases cleared, was quite remarkable—104 per cent, indicating the AAT has been eating into a backlog above the target of 100 per cent. In terms of output, which is the raw number of AAT applications and referrals finalised or dealt with: in the 2022-23 financial year the AAT finalised 42,862 matters. That is better than their performance benchmark, which is 42,024 cases.

If you look at these metrics, you see a body that has quite a prodigious workload and is working quite hard. The parties are largely satisfied with its performance. But we've heard from the government, in the majority report of the committee looking into this, the argument that the AAT has lost the confidence of all stakeholders. I would suggest that if you're getting a satisfaction rate of 72 per cent you cannot say that stakeholders are dissatisfied.

If you have a look at some of the other figures: with respect to fairness, namely the courtesy and respect shown by members and registrars and the opportunity given to parties to present their case, and overall perceptions of fairness of the reviewing and independence of the AAT, the satisfaction rating of users was 77 per cent. This suggests the client load of the AAT is overwhelmingly quite pleased with how the body operates. You see the AAT is dealing with decisions in a timely manner. It's clearing a backlog. It's satisfied clients, and it's meeting all its performance benchmarks. It's hard to see how you can possibly make the case on that basis that the AAT has lost the confidence of all stakeholders, as the government has chosen to do.

I recognise that a body that has been around for 50 years could undoubtedly be improved, and there are areas where there's a legitimate need for reform of the AAT and improvements could be made. Just like with any body that has been operating over a period, circumstances change, the caseload changes, the level of expertise changes and the use of technology changes. When you have a body with a remit as wide-ranging and complex as the AAT's, that is only to be expected. The AAT reaches into nearly all portfolios of government decision-making, from tariff concessions to freedom of information to veterans affairs, national security, immigration decisions and everything else. But the question is: do we need to abolish the AAT, the old body, entirely and create a wholly new body, or could this be done in a much simpler and cleaner way—and, importantly, in a way that preserves the jurisprudence, the expertise, the experience, the processes and the corporate memory of a body which now has a substantial corpus of work behind it over 50 years?

I also have to ask the question: are the resources necessary to undertake this task warranted? In the budget papers, in Budget Paper No. 2:

The Government will provide $1.0 billion over five years from 2023-24 … to establish and support the sustainable operation of the new Administrative Review Tribunal.

This new body is costing us $1 billion. That's a substantial sum of money.

We saw in the budget announced last night by the government that the government like to run an expansionary budget and don't have much concern for inflationary pressures, for the role of the Reserve Bank in trying to keep a lid on inflation or about the interest rates mortgage holders are paying, having now injected something in the order of $305 billion in extra discretionary spending into the economy in their two years in office and spent four out of every $5 of the extraordinary windfall that bracket creep and high commodity prices have delivered to them. I know the government doesn't have much of a problem; to them, $1 billion is small change. To the taxpayer, it's a significant sum of money. I have to ask: has the case been made? I don't think it has been.

Let me also turn, though, to the process that has been engaged in here. This is an extraordinarily complex set of legislation. There are three bills altogether here, abolishing an old system entirely and creating a new system. We've got 692 pages of new primary legislation, 760 pages of explanatory materials, a package establishing an entirely new Administrative Review Tribunal—or ART—plus 33 schedules of amending legislation, which in turn affect and impose changes on literally hundreds of Commonwealth acts. There are also, of course, 67,000-odd cases currently on foot before the AAT. What will happen to those? What will be the transition process for those cases that are currently before the AAT when it transitions to the ART?

We've heard—including from my colleague Senator Scarr, who was on the Senate inquiry into this—just how little time has been devoted to providing any proper scrutiny of this and, frankly, to ensuring that mistakes which a little more oversight, time and interrogation would reveal are apparent in incredibly complex legislation. We had in this place just under seven hours of committee hearings. The committee has spent a very short amount of time scrutinising this. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal—the body being abolished—was called to appear for just 40 minutes. Now we've had this legislation introduced, and it's likely to be rushed through by the government at short notice. Presumably, they will seek to guillotine debate at some point and move this to a vote.

It's an extraordinarily cavalier way to treat the parliament. That's not just the coalition members but the crossbench members as well. But it's also quite dangerous. When you're dealing with something this complex, sometimes scrutiny, questioning and interrogation conducted by any members of parliament can bring out unintended errors and unintended, second-order consequences that can make the implementation of this legislation difficult. But the government doesn't seem to be interested in this.

We've already seen the Attorney-General having to introduce a whole suite of changes just two months after introducing his primary legislation, before a single committee hearing had taken place, presumably on the advice of the Attorney-General's Department. There were a whole lot of unintended consequences and complications from the legislation that was initially introduced. The risk of rushing this process now, as the committee itself was rushed, is that similar mistakes, errors or unintended consequences, unforeseen at the time of drafting, will make themselves manifest.

That will affect not only the administration of justice in this country and the accountability of the executive but also a large number of the parties currently before the AAT. If the ART has set up and established that it's not able to transition smoothly from the AAT, then we will have a real mess. Part of the Attorney-General's rationale was to clear a supposed backlog. As I quoted in those figures, the AAT is actually managing at 104 per cent of efficiency. It's processing more cases than it hears, which means it is eating into the backlog. But, if there are time bombs and unintended, unforeseen consequences and errors in this bill, then this system will grind to a halt until parliament can deal with it again. That's all because the parliament and the Senate have not been allowed the time by the government to scrutinise this legislation properly.

I say again that the case here has not been made for the abolition of the AAT. Certainly there are arguments to be made for its reform and improvement. But, if you look at its performance as measured against its own performance benchmarks, its annual report and the degree of satisfaction from existing stakeholders, the best case you can make is that reforms and incremental improvements can be made. But to undertake a risky process like this—because setting up an entirely new body carries risks—to go to the expense of $1 billion, as announced in the budget last night, and to risk the loss of expertise, jurisprudence speciality and everything else that the AAT has built up over a number of years is an irresponsible and reckless course to be taking. That is why I will be opposing this legislation.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise tonight to speak on the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill and the associated legislation because I smell a rat. You've only got to look at the history of the Albanese government when it comes to transparency to know that, somewhere, somehow, they are cooking the books. In my prior career, I was an accountant. One of the things we were taught in my professional years is that you've got to look at substance over form. That is statement of accounting concept No. 4. When you're looking at a balance sheet and financial statements, you've got to look at what's really going on. Many people might know it as reading between the lines.

What we've got here is a government that is going to spend a billion dollars on basically doing the old 'bait and switch'. We've currently got 340 people working on the AAT, and they want to pull out the 160 or so people that weren't appointed by the Labor government. I say that because, if you know anything about the Labor Party, they are all about command and control. They will not allow any independent thinking on any government body whatsoever. We have evidence of that. In the recent parliamentary break, thanks to an FOI by Senator Paterson, we discovered that the Prime Minister's office released a document explaining to bureaucrats and people who take questions in estimates how not to answer the question. This is a government that hates transparency and hates accountability, and there is a conga line of examples.

One of the first things Prime Minister Albanese said he would do when he got into government was release the minutes of national cabinet. Of course he wouldn't do that. He called out Prime Minister Morrison for not releasing the minutes from national cabinet, and I called out Prime Minister Morrison—that hideous Frankenstein creature that locked us down for two years through those horrible years of the COVID pandemic—for not releasing the minutes of national cabinet. They need to be held to account. That's not all though. We wanted information on the vaccine contracts every Tuesday—'transmission Tuesday'. We want an inquiry into renewables and the impact of renewables on our farmland and our fisheries. We cannot get any transparency. We wanted an inquiry into childhood transitioning and whether or not that deserved scrutiny. That too was shut down. When we wanted more information on Brittany Higgins and the millions of dollars paid out to her, that was shut down. That decision deserved scrutiny because, in a recent court case, the judge said that Fiona Brown, Linda Reynolds's chief of staff, acted sensibly. Serious questions need to be asked of this government; yet again, they are not interested in transparency.

Then we've got to look at how they love to stack the boards with their mates. One of the first things that the current Treasurer did when he got into office was put Iain Ross on the RBA board. Iain Ross was the former head of the Fair Work Commission, which was supposed to stand up for employees but of course they threw employees under the bus during the COVID pandemic. But there was more to that. Iain Ross was one of the architects with Bill Kelty and Paul Keating of the superannuation system—another form of mandate and another form of wage theft. There was no transparency about superannuation. There was no inquiry or referendum as to whether or not people wanted 12 per cent of their income taken from them and given to Labor's mates in their ivory palaces in Sydney and Melbourne. No, there was no transparency, no scrutiny. 'We'll just start it off at two per cent and slowly creep it up to 12 per cent,' because that is the way the Labor Party operate, and that is why we have to look at substance over form. Why are they spending a billion dollars on changing the name of a tribunal that does very important work assessing whether or not the bureaucrats in the government make proper administrative procedures? What is it that they are trying to hide? We know that the Labor Party love to hide information. They love not to hold the bureaucrats to account. We see that all the time in estimates—whenever we ask questions, they don't want to answer them. So I think we need greater scrutiny.

Tonight, my colleague Senator Scarr pointed out how the committee had very little time to actually review this bill. After a number of days and the inquiry, suddenly this bill—and the committee hasn't even had time to hand down its report—is being rushed into parliament so that it cannot be adequately scrutinised. Yet again, it's this constant theme of being sneaky. Prime Minister Albanese and the Attorney-General, Mr Dreyfus, really cannot explain what the rush is.

And when this new creation is brought to life, of course it'll actually cost you more to get the bureaucrats held to account. So it's going to be even harder for the average Joe in the public out there to access their right to natural justice. Yet again, this is what the Labor Party do.

I ask myself: why do you have to sack 50 per cent of the AAT because they weren't appointed by Labor? You could have just played the long game here and eventually put your appointees in there. It's not like we don't do that. Tony Abbott appointed a Labor staffer as the head of the Audit Office, the Auditor-General. When he came out and told lies about the purchase of land for the Western Sydney airport, we held him to account here in the Senate. I held him to account. He claimed that $3 million for 30 acres of flat land in Western Sydney was somehow criminal. What he didn't say to the people was that Paul Keating, in 1995 when he was Prime Minister, paid $130 million for land for the Western Sydney airport, and that was only reported in the balance sheet as $30 million. But all that was put aside because the Auditor-General abused his position to make a whole swathe of lies, which he was never held accountable for.

Let me tell you, Labor, if you think that you're just going to rush this through parliament without adequate scrutiny, you can think again. I'd like to think that the Greens, in order to honour transparency, in the name of transparency, will vote against this bill, will vote against rushing it through parliament, so that we can have a better look. Yet again, a billion dollars is getting wasted on nothing more than a shuffle, a bait and switch. Labor will put their mates on the board. We've seen it with the soon-to-be Governor-General. She's an ex-Keating staffer.

I well remember another Keating staffer, Bill Bowtell. I was listening to ABC national coming back from doing laps in the morning one morning before COVID and a bloke called Bill Bowtell was telling everyone that we had to lock the country down. I thought, 'Who's this doctor?' Of course, I googled his name. It turns out he's a former Paul Keating staffer likewise with Qantas—a member of that board.

Labor have a history of appointing their mates to positions of power and authority. What we need to know here is why they are wasting a billion dollars of taxpayer funds plus the inconvenience of all the outstanding cases—I think there are tens of thousands of outstanding cases—that may have to be held again or started from scratch again for the poor person out there, the battler, who has probably been shafted by some tyrannical bureaucrat, where the power has gone to their head. Heaven knows we deal with these people every day. Every day I am contacted by people who have had unfair decisions handed down to them by the bureaucracy, whether it's the tax office or whether it's the NDIS, or people who have suffered from the vaccine injury scheme—all the time. I've been given tape recordings in which bureaucrats didn't realise they hadn't hung up the phone properly and were mocking people had who rung them for help.

I'm not saying that all the bureaucrats are bad, but we need to have a level of review. Obviously, there are only 227 politicians at the federal level. We can't be across every administrative decision made every week by the tens of thousands of bureaucrats in this country, but we need to know that we have an impartial and independent appeals tribunal that is going to give the battler out there their natural justice—the battler who pays taxes to the government in return for services and for being treated like a human being.

That's probably been the hardest aspect of this role, and my role as a senator is daily talking to constituents who are absolutely gobsmacked at the way they get treated by their government and the arrogance of the bureaucrats. It's one of the reasons why my questioning in estimates does so well on the social media—because so many people can relate to being shafted by the government and the big engine of bureaucracy every day. And, no, Senator Watt, it's not a laughing matter. It is very serious. This contemptuous, patronising attitude by bureaucrats has to be held to account by people who are going to put the interests of the people first. That's what democracy is: for the people, by the people. It's not for the bureaucrats; it's not by the big end of town for the big end of town.

We see that all the time with the Labor government. In last night's budget, we got $20 billion for critical industries, for green hydrogen, for their mates the billionaires—Andrew Forrest—and for big end of town bureaucrats, who are looking after big end of town blowhards. Let me tell you: the Australian people are sick and tired of it. They're sick of the lack of transparency. They're sick of the patronising attitude and the callous indifference. The people get shafted by the government and then the government kicks them to the curb. We saw that with those injured by the vaccine. They were mocked as being antivaxxers—how disgusting. And they're still mocked—how disgusting.

Let me tell you: people are waking up. They know that the government should serve the people and that they are not doing that. So the question is: why is the Albanese government wasting a billion dollars to do nothing more than bait and switch to basically rebrand a whole new department, sack everyone and then recruit everyone again, disrupting the appeals process? Heavens knows how much backlog this is going to cause. It's going to end up costing people more; they are now going to have to pay more. Why? I'll tell you why. Labor are up to something. They're looking after their mates at the big end of town like they always do.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024 and related bills. I'll begin by firstly congratulating Senator Rennick for that contribution. Senator Rennick has a way of cutting through to the core of the matter that I think is of great value to this place. I think I will start where Senator Rennick finished, and that is by asking why. Why are we doing this? What is the stated excuse? What's the stated reason from this Attorney-General? Then I'll look at the reality of the situation.

First, what's the change? The Administrative Appeals Tribunal will become the Administrative Review Tribunal. A billion bucks for one word seems like a lot of money, and I think it would seem that way to the Australian people facing a cost-of-living crisis. The government claimed certain things in its budget but then found $1 billion to turn the AAT into the ART. You have to ask yourself: why? You also have to ask yourself—and this is also a point Senator Rennick made—why now? Why not when this bill was due to come before parliament in a couple of months after the Senate inquiry had had a proper look at it and a chance to report properly? Why have we now got some sort of deal stitched up between the Labor Party and their allies on the crossbench to bring this on and ram it through the parliament this week? As far as I can tell, there is no particular rush for action here. We should be making sure when we're dealing with matters concerning the Australian judicial system—and the AAT is part of our judicial system—that we actually take the time—

Okay, Senator Shoebridge; I'll take that interjection. But most ordinary Australians would consider the AAT to be a part of the framework of laws, rules and processes we have in place for them to challenge government and bureaucratic decisions. So, whilst technically it's not part of the judicial system, most people, most ordinary Australians, would see the AAT as a central part of the way this country ensures fairness and equity for its citizens. As such, that should be one of the things we in this place both hold in high regard and take to with a duty of care that is of the highest level. In dealing with this particular bill in this way, the Labor Party government and those on the crossbench who are going to support them in this guillotine, effectively, are showing a disdain both for the process and, by association, for the people of Australia. You should not handle important issues this way.

It may surprise a lot of people to learn that, contrary to the rhetoric from this Attorney-General and this government, the vast majority of AAT members have been appointed by the Labor Party. So, if they're criticising the members of the AAT, they're actually criticising a lot of their own appointees. It was a transparent process to appoint people to the AAT in that these things were very clear and part of publicly available information. Who are the kinds of people that are apparently being targeted to be purged from the AAT? It's people with master's degrees, people who have been attorneys-general themselves, people with doctorates of law, people with significant qualifications from university and people with significant experience of life as a whole but also significant legal experience. It is ridiculous to say that, in any way, the appointments have not been worthy. The AAT plays a very important role and is something that we should tinker with with great care. So, when we see a billion dollars being spent, with one word in the name 'AAT' being changed, we have to be, rightly, a little bit cynical about what the motives are. Is it just to get rid of a few people that the Labor Party don't like in that particular organisation? If so, I think that is to the great shame of this government and to the great shame of the Attorney-General.

There are three bills here. They abolish a system that provides merits review across the entire Commonwealth statute book and reaches into virtually all portfolios. We're now looking at 692 pages of new primary legislation, with 760 pages of explanatory materials. What has been rushed before this chamber is a package establishing an entirely new administrative review body, plus 33 schedules of amending legislation. These changes literally affect hundreds of Commonwealth acts. It is complex legislation, the impacts of which cannot be known at this point. They cannot. It is simply impossible to know, when you're dealing with legislative change of this nature, the unintended consequences. And, therefore, the potential for negative flow-on effects on the 67,000 cases that are currently on foot could be extraordinary—67,000 cases. That would be hundreds of thousands of individual Australians potentially impacted in a negative way by these changes.

And yet we have had just six hours and 55 minutes of committee hearing, per the program set, of course, by the government—not even one working day for an average working Australian. That it's all the scrutiny there has been for a bill which potentially impacts 67,000 cases, hundreds and thousands of individual Australians, and a significant part of our machinery of government that ensures that administrative decisions are fair to all Australians. One working day—that gives committee members about 40 seconds per page to look at the legislation.

The number of cases at the AAT right now is greater than the number of seconds this Labor dominated committee spent examining the legislation. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal itself had just a 40-minute hearing in front of that committee. That's 40 minutes of evidence from the body that is being wound up, to be replaced by an unknown body—again, potentially affecting 67,000 cases and hundreds of thousands of Australians who are seeking redress through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

That is not good process. I think it's shameful for those on the crossbench who are holier than thou, who claim to be whiter than white, who claim to be purer than the driven snow on issues of probity and process, to have facilitated the truncation, or the abandonment, effectively, of the inquiry—the truncation of any serious consideration that the committee system could give this legislation, taking it on faith that the Attorney-General has got this right, when, on the face of the legislation itself, he hasn't got it right. He's already had to amend his own legislation. The flaws are there to see, but they're only the flaws that the Attorney-General's Department themselves picked up, or perhaps they were informed of them by a third party. How many more errors are embedded in this legislation that have not yet been picked up because we haven't had a proper committee process?

Now we're debating these measures two months earlier than we should have been, no doubt with a view to passing them through this place. Clearly some sort of deal has been done, otherwise we wouldn't be here talking about this tonight. Somewhere, somehow, behind closed doors, untransparent to anyone in this room—certainly anyone on this side in this room—a deal has been done. We don't know what the content of that deal is. We don't know what has been agreed. We certainly can't be sure that this legislation has had adequate scrutiny, because we know it hasn't.

Again, we know that this legislation is not right. One of the bills is the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 2) Bill, which actually makes changes to the ART Bill itself. There is an entire schedule, schedule 16, which makes changes to the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill. It was introduced before the primary bill had even been debated in the House. That's how well the Attorney-General nailed down this legislation before bringing it to this parliament. Before the primary bill was even introduced, an amendment—an entire bill of amendments in fact—had to be introduced as well. Two months after introducing the primary legislation, before a single committee hearing had taken place, he realised there were problems with the bill and introduced a whole suite of changes. These changes did not go to a minor, inconsequential issue. They concern the way the tribunal would deal with preventative detention orders in terrorism cases. The Attorney-General was admitting to major problems with his own legislation. He was telling us through his actions, because of course he is never willing to publicly admit these things, that the ART Bill was flawed and needed to be changed. That is why scrutiny is so important.

I've got up in this place many times and talked about the importance of the committee process and the importance of the scrutiny role of the Senate in particular with regard to government legislation. It is something that is vitally important, so to see it now being truncated by Labor in alliance with others is I think very telling as to what the priorities of both this government and those of the crossbench are. I think when they say they believe in openness, transparency and proper consideration we all now know how thin, how weak, how pathetic those words really are, because here, where we've got something of such import to the Australian people, we are dispensing with the committee process. We're putting it to one side and saying: 'No, we're just going to stop doing that. A deal has been done behind closed doors. Let's pass the legislation.' I think that's a great shame on this place and I would ask those who are going to do that to reconsider. Allow the committee process to continue its work, allow it to complete its inquiry properly, and then let's come back here and debate this bill properly.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I come to this debate—well, it's not a debate but a fait accompli, with the deal having been done, clearly, with those sitting at the end of the chamber—as someone who has been a member of the AAT. I think I'm probably one of the few people in here that can say that I actually know the AAT. I had a brief stint there. For those that played along at home during the constitutional crisis, the ruling impacted me. When Fiona Nash left the Senate and I was the next on the ticket and should have entered the Senate, that went to the High Court. The High Court ruled that the election had never ended and that I held an office of profit under the Crown at the tribunal and was therefore ineligible to enter the Senate. So I have firsthand experience of the AAT and the work it does. I can proudly say I've worked in the migration area. Not one of the decisions that I made and not one of the outcomes of the cases that I sat on and adjudicated over were appealed. That's actually one of the KPIs of the AAT—that it's not seeing excessive numbers of appeals of the decisions made by members and that the decisions are made on sound and solid grounds. I can proudly say I didn't have any appeals on my record.

But I do, just in light of this, want to make mention of someone else. I'm not sure if he's still at the tribunal; he very well may be. He was appointed by then Attorney-General George Brandis at the same time as me. He was a lovely man. I actually sat with him at the dinner we had to welcome new members to the tribunal when we were going through tribunal school. That was a man called Mark Bishop. Mark was a Labor senator who had then been appointed to the tribunal by the Liberal Attorney-General George Brandis because Mark did have, as a former senator, a number of skills that would provide value. I'm sure he has provided value to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The difference is that we see that—and I note from Senator Davey's contribution when she looked at the discrimination act and how it behaves in the Public Service as well and what's actually discriminatory behaviour—the current Attorney-General might need to update himself on discrimination because it is actually a form of discrimination to penalise someone based on political affiliation.

What we are seeing here is a cosy deal done with the Greens; otherwise, the day after the budget, we wouldn't be seeing a change of hours for them to just ram through $1 billion worth of spending on an administrative tribunal which is actually not changing it. It's a rebrand so that they can restructure and move out everyone that they did not appoint, outside of the 160 Labor affiliated appointments that the government have made since coming to office, so that they can effectively discriminate against anybody who does not have card-carrying membership of the Labor Party. Maybe the Greens want a couple of their own. Maybe that's part of their deal. It is the most disgusting and disgraceful abuse of power. But, I have to say, I am not shocked, which is disappointing. We have come to expect, in record time from this government, nothing less than completely hypocritical behaviour and a lack of transparency, and now we can add a good healthy dose of nepotism.

I will talk a little bit more about the specifics, for those playing along at home, of what the difference is going to look like and what spending $1 billion on a rebrand is going to look like. It's got to be the fastest time a government has delivered a budget and then hasn't wanted to talk about it. It's literally not even been 24 hours since the budget, and they've urgently said, 'Quick—we can pass this legislation,' about the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. I've seen the headlines evolve throughout the day, and this budget has gone down like a lead balloon. Australians can see it for the stinker that it is. They know it's absolutely going to make their lives harder.

They know about this rubbish they've gone on with about 'every household'. I do not know if everyone's caught up on question time in the House of Representatives today, but there was a fantastic question from the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Bradfield. He asked, in a hypothetical question, whether someone who had to move from, say, Bellevue Hill to Parramatta for work and owned a substantial number of properties, including, say, a $12 million beach house at Palm Beach, would receive $300 per household for each of those properties. There is actually a list in the Daily Telegraph of how many homes all members of this place and the other place own. It was a fair question on 'per household'. If you have a couple of households, are you getting it a couple of times?

Coming back, this is a billion dollars on a rebrand. I thought I'd just have a look at some of the things we could spend a billion dollars on rather than a new logo, business card and letterhead—and, I'm assuming, some redundancy payments for anyone who's ever been affiliated with the Liberal Party. We won't see the Greens here because of their level of hypocrisy. I want to say that if they didn't have double standards they wouldn't have any at all. Let's think about infrastructure development. We have Senator Allman-Payne, who is very passionate about public schools, schooling and education. Just think of how many public schools could be refurbished or hospitals updated in our under-served areas. Look at the ageing water and sewerage systems and how much public health and sanitation could be improved. Rail connections and even—I don't know—a road from the new airport in Western Sydney might be part of that equation.

They could have some EV charging points! Just think how many, Senator O'Sullivan, EV charging stations could be put across this land! You know what? They could even put some good cappuccino makers there so you could make yourself a coffee while your car charges for 3½ hours!

Seriously, we could establish new community health centres in rural and remote areas. We could invest in medical research and develop treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. We could expand mental health. We know we had a tokenistic mention of mental health in the budget last night while this country is consumed by a mental health crisis made worse by Labor's homegrown inflation and cost-of-living crisis. But we get a tokenistic app being developed for mental health. Just think what a billion dollars could do for mental health, especially at the moderate-to-severe end of mental illness.

We could have new technology going into every classroom across the county and enhance digital learning for students, particularly those in rural and remote areas and those who struggle with connection at the moment. We could update those sorts of systems for them. We could fund scholarships for low-income families to go to university or vocational training. We could help Indigenous rural and regional children attend boarding schools that would provide them with secure housing, food and education and really set them on a path to a better life. Look at what we could do in adult education. We have more migrants in this country than ever before, but imagine the programs we could put in place to help them learn English and understand Australian culture.

We hear a lot about homelessness, affordable housing and how people are struggling to get into homes. What could a billion dollars do? How many houses could a billion dollars build? What could we build for a billion dollars? How many low-interest loans could we offer to first-time homebuyers to help them break into the housing market with a billion dollars? These guys are all about energy efficiency. They love that. It's 'zero emissions', you know? 'We've got to make sure everyone has five stars on their appliances.' We could improve energy efficiency in many, many homes, particularly in lower-socioeconomic areas, so they wouldn't need to run their heaters full time in winter. They wouldn't require that volume of air conditioning because their houses would be insulated properly. But no—we're not looking at that. We're looking at a rebrand.

Look at environmental conservatism. Think about the ecosystems that could benefit from some reforestation programs. We could even invest in working more effectively with the transmission lines that everyone is so determined to bulldoze through those communities. We could look at how to use plastics better. We could look at recycling. These are the things that we hear the Greens talk about, but, when it comes to a billion dollars for a rebrand, forget the recycling and the environment: 'We don't want any energy efficiency programs in any of these lower-socioeconomic groups. We don't want to work on any job creation programs.' Imagine spending a billion dollars on rural and regional areas and Indigenous communities to train them up. How much could a billion dollars do there?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A dam!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, God! A dam! How good would a dam or water security be! We could stop the flooding in the Hawkesbury that happens every 3½ minutes. Do you remember when Tim Flannery told us it was never going to rain again? Tell that to the people of the Hawkesbury who've been flooded out multiple times over the past couple of months. It's awesome!

I thought social welfare programs were your bailiwick. But, clearly, they're not, because you're prepared to put a billion dollars into new business cards rather than look at food assistance programs in a cost-of-living crisis that could actually help families that are struggling. You could put breakfasts in schools in lower-socioeconomic areas where kids come to school with an empty tummy. You could make sure there are lunches in schools.

I sponsor kids through the Smith Family. I try and help. You know those programs where you sponsor a kid in Africa? I always thought that, if there was some way you could help, homegrown, then you should help at home. I got a nice letter from the child that I am currently sponsoring. I've had a few, as they've graduated from school, and I get nice letters telling me where they've gone off to. One's learning to be a mechanic. I get a letter about what the money that I give has helped contribute to buying—uniforms, for example. It has helped contribute to buying schoolbooks.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A billion dollars!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A billion dollars worth of schoolbooks or a billion dollars worth of uniforms could have been provided to struggling families and their children. But, no! Don't worry. We'll make sure we get both window-faced and plain envelopes ready to go, all with the new logo and proper font on them.

What about disaster relief? There are all those things. It's the end of the world. There's actually never going to be a positive about climate change. When you think about more carbon and more water, it's pretty good for the forests of Australia. It's pretty lush and green out there at the moment. But we're going to have all these disasters, apparently. We could've had a billion dollars ready to go to a disaster relief fund.

What about crime prevention? Indigenous communities and rural and regional communities are being ravaged, particularly by youth crime. We had a stabbing in Dubbo again last weekend. A billion dollars could be spent on youth crime initiatives.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor's soft on crime!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are soft on crime. There's no national security; let in anyone, willy-nilly. The boats are back. Christmas Island's coming back. This level of incompetence is breathtaking, but it is being aided and abetted by those on the crossbench who claim and profess to be about social justice. They say: 'We're all about the welfare of the lower socioeconomic groups; those struggling and those doing it tough. We care about koalas and whales. We worry about the environment.' No, you don't! You worry about whatever cosy deal you can get from the Labor Party and then you'll be in here crying tomorrow because, 'Oh my God, they want to use gas!' Seriously, get some consistency, people! Have some values on something and actually stand by them, rather than capitulating for a billion dollars.

Do you know what we've got at the moment? We've got an Administrative Appeals Tribunal that reviews government decisions. After this, we're going to have an Administrative Appeals Tribunal called the ART, not the AAT. But we're going to have a tribunal that reviews government decisions. At the moment, Australians can apply at the AAT to have the merits of a decision reviewed. After this legislation, they get to apply—at a higher cost, mind you—to the ART. The one big difference is that, at the moment, we have a tribunal that has people appointed who have experience across range of different areas and issues. Instead, what we're going to have with the ART is a tribunal completely stacked with Labor apparatchiks—

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unions!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The unions. They didn't get the promotion through the right executive of the union body.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They didn't become a senator.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They didn't become a senator. We know that's the clear pathway if you're in the Labor party. It will be all Labor apparatchiks. It'll put an ideological bent on decisions that should be being made impartially and at a distance as they review government decisions. But, no! Here we go again. Ram it through, thanks to the Greens. (Time expired)

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Attorney-General Dreyfus, in his conduct since he's become Attorney-General, is making Lionel Murphy look like a half-decent first law officer. Let's look at his record since he's become Attorney-General. He holds the odious honour of becoming the first Attorney-General to be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission in relation to his conduct concerning Senator Reynolds. We all know the record of Lionel Murphy, and I think Attorney-General Dreyfus is following Lionel Murphy down that particular rabbit hole.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 7.30, we will now move to adjournment. Senator McGrath, you will be in continuation.