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 (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2024. In commencing this debate, it's almost amusing, quite frankly, because this is the Attorney-General of Australia's third attempt at making adequate legislation to abolish the AAT and replace it with the ART. That's right, ladies and gentlemen: the Attorney-General of Australia couldn't get it right the first time, he couldn't get it right the second time, and this is now his third attempt, in terms of the legislation.

In terms of the first attempt, there was a set of two bills introduced in December 2023, almost a full year after he announced that he didn't like the AAT anymore and he was going to abolish it. Fast-forward two months to February 2024, and, as I said, we're onto the Attorney-General of Australia's third attempt—due to his sloppy drafting—at getting this bill right. Either way, as we know, the legislation has passed. As a result, we have transitioned from the AAT to the ART. What has been put to me now by so many people who understand what this is all about is that it is a transition which might unkindly be compared, as somebody said, to a smouldering dumpster fire. That person also said to me: 'Hey, hold on. That is actually unkind to dumpster fires, because dumpster fires do not smell as bad as this sloppy drafting by the Attorney-General.'

But, leaving operational issues to one side, the reason we are here right now, as I said, for the third time, talking about this issue is that, yet again, the Attorney-General of Australia, despite having a department full of legal brains, unfortunately settled legislation in which, in the first instance, there were mistakes. In the second instance, there were still mistakes, and, as Senator Scarr has said, this might be the third attempt, but I wouldn't put a fourth attempt past it. That is basically how we now get to this bill. It's called a 'miscellaneous measures' bill, but really it is legislation that, as I said, corrects errors the Attorney-General made in his first and second attempts at getting the legislation right to establish what is now known as the ART.

What are the unintended consequences of this sloppy drafting that we are fixing? What are the pressing issues in this bill on which the Attorney-General wants us to legislate? Well, to quote from the explanatory memorandum:

The Bill would make further amendments to 52 Commonwealth Acts (including the ART Act), to update references to the AAT in legislation that has passed or been introduced to Parliament since the introduction of the ART Act and to make technical amendments to support the efficient conduct of Tribunal review and ensure the legislation operates as intended.

Hmmm, yes: 'operates as intended'. So, this bill makes changes to 52 acts. But the dead giveaway is in those last few words. The bill is meant to 'ensure the legislation operates as intended'. In other words, the Attorney-General of Australia needs to pass this legislation because right now we have a tribunal in place and legislation that isn't operating as intended. We all know why, though, because for the first 18 months of the Albanese Labor government the Attorney-General wasn't focused on good legislation; he was focused on and completely distracted by working on the government's disastrous and divisive Voice campaign. In fact, at the time it would appear to have been his only interest. His work in every other area of his portfolio was incredibly sloppy. So here we are, as I said, at not the first attempt, not the second attempt but now the third attempt to get a piece of legislation right.

What are the unintended consequences that this bill is addressing? The first is in relation to the migration system. It's well known—it's a fact—that Labor governments can't manage migration and can't defend our borders. That is of course why more than a million people have arrived on our shore in less than two years, massively overshooting even Labor's own target for net overseas migration. The initial indications are that Mr Dreyfus's new Administrative Review Tribunal is now compounding that issue, because we are now seeing a massive blowout in the tribunal's case load. In fact, despite Mr Dreyfus saying on his first attempt that is what he was seeking to address, the situation is now far worse under Mr Dreyfus than it was in May 2022, when Labor were elected to office.

But let's look at the statistics. If you take the statistics from 30 June 2022, just after the coalition left office and before this parliament sat for the first time, and compare them with the most recent information from the ART, from November of last year, the picture these statistics now paint, considering that the cost of this bill to the Australian taxpayer was a billion dollars, is grim. When the coalition left office there were 37,025 refugee cases on hand. By 30 November last year, despite the Attorney-General's attempt to spend a billion dollars of taxpayers' money, there were 42,997 protection cases—not a decrease but an increase. When the coalition left office there were 19,104 migration cases before the AAT. That number has risen quite extraordinarily, to 35,898, under this Attorney-General—an 88 per cent increase. In fact, across the whole tribunal, when the coalition left office, there were 67,720 cases on hand. Now let's have a look at what's on hand under the Attorney-General's $1 billion 'let's change the middle letter from A to R' tribunal: 90,000 cases on hand, including 6,000 new migration and protection cases—6,000—in just the first six weeks of operation. To say that that is extraordinary growth, quite frankly, is an understatement, and it is entirely unsustainable for any tribunal. What it also shows is that Labor's approach to migration isn't working and that, as this tribunal gets more and more bogged down and the backlog grows, as shown in the statistics, our migration problems will get worse.

You might say, 'That's all very well, but what's that got to do with a miscellaneous measures bill?' Well, the answer is actually in the explanatory materials for this bill, because one of the things that this bill does is to amend the ART's jurisdiction to review migration and protection decisions. This item repeals and replaces section 348(2) of the Migration Act—a provision that was inserted by the Attorney-General when he did his deal with the Australian Greens to push this billion-dollar piece of legislation through—to explicitly state that the tribunal must not review an application made under sections 347 and 347A of the Migration Act that is not properly made. The effect of this amendment is that the tribunal will not have jurisdiction to review an application made under part 5 of the Migration Act if it is not properly made. Together, these provisions put beyond doubt how the tribunal is to deal with applications for reviewable migration decisions and reviewable protection decisions.

Now, that's all pretty technical, so let's break it down into plain English for those who aren't lawyers. What these changes are doing is making it clear that the tribunal is not required to hear a case if there is no proper application. You've then got to say to yourself: 'Well, hey, hold on. Why would the Attorney-General of Australia need to make that clear? You don't clarify things if they are working as intended.' You see, this is the problem with the sloppy drafting. It's because mistakes in the Attorney-General's legislation inadvertently created a loophole. Can you believe it? At a cost of $1 billion to the taxpayer, they could not get the legislation right on the first go.

What this meant was quite serious. It meant that the tribunal could potentially be required to go through the hearing of a case even if there is no proper application. I bet the Australian taxpayers love that loophole! That would mean forcing the tribunal to deal with vastly more cases than it was ever intended to deal with. What it also meant, potentially, is creating a pathway for people to remain in Australia while their case is resolved, simply by lodging an incomplete or incorrect application, even if they have no lawful entitlement to actually remain here. One might say that perhaps the Australian Greens were alive to this issue and that's the reason that they agreed to Mr Dreyfus's deal in the first place. Perhaps this sort of error is the reason. You look at the increase in case load. The new tribunal had 6,000 new migration and protection cases in just its first six weeks. We'll never know, but it clearly now falls upon all of us in this Senate to clean up the Attorney-General's sloppy drafting and the unintended consequences.

But the unintended consequences don't stop there. This is very serious, and the Attorney-General hasn't been upfront with the people of Australia in relation to the second example of the type of serious issue we are fixing, which was again created entirely by the Attorney-General's sloppy drafting. It relates to women's safety in child support matters. Perhaps he needs to talk to Mr Bill Shorten about what occurred here. Because of the initial passage of the administrative review tribunal legislation—get this—Services Australia is now inadvertently in a position where it is forced to manually review each customer file that is before the tribunal every 28 days. This is a requirement that was introduced by the Attorney-General of Australia. It is incredibly intensive. It involves reviewing thousands of documents, applying redactions to protect from family and domestic violence risk and then sending the documents out to thousands of parties.

Anyone who has dealt with the child support system knows what a sad and difficult area this is, particularly when you are talking about disputes that are before a tribunal for a resolution. The sad fact is that, in about 40 per cent of matters where there is no family and domestic violence indicated on the file, there is a need to seek a nondisclosure order because of the inherent risk of either parent reacting adversely to the content of those documents and then triggering a family and domestic violence incident. They are worried about a very real risk of violence. Services Australia staff must be terrified that they will miss something, that they will make a mistake in going through this incredibly inefficient monthly process that the Attorney-General has imposed on them and then that they will trigger a domestic violence event. This, quite frankly, is sloppy drafting at its worst. It is bureaucracy at its worst. It is quite frankly a stupid and unnecessary requirement that is actually having adverse consequences for women's safety in child support matters.

To be clear, though, this wasn't the Attorney-General's intention. It was actually a mistake. He wanted the president of the tribunal to be able to deal with this issue by issuing practice directions, but, because of the mistake and the sloppy drafting, the legislation did not give sufficient power to the president to do just that and, again, for the third time, we are now here in the Australian Senate fixing up what in this case is a very dangerous mistake by the Attorney-General. There is a real concern that, unless we pass item 2 in schedule 4 on page 47 of this bill to fix the legislation, women and children around Australia will be exposed to an increased risk of family and domestic violence. Again, this isn't an issue that we raised; this is a genuine and very real concern that was raised with the coalition late last year by multiple areas across government.

The government knows about this problem. It has known for months about the risk it created when it rammed the legislation through—$1 billion to establish the ART. We accept their advice that they have, indeed, created a safety risk—which is shameful—for women and families using the child support system. We will, of course, pass the bill and fix the problem that the Attorney-General of Australia has created. But certainly we would hope that, despite our experiences to date—as I said, there was a first attempt and a second attempt and we are here on now the third attempt to get this legislation right—there are no other egregious errors created by what is quite frankly a rolling debacle of a process.

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

I rise to indicate that the Greens will be supporting the Administrative Review Tribunal (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2024 as a result of amendments that will be moved by the government in committee. This bill came before the Senate last year, and we were told at the time that it was effectively a 'rats and mice' provision, dealing with modest amendments of an administrative nature to the ART bill. By and large, that's what this bill actually provides for. It is the Administrative Review Tribunal (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2024, and the great bulk of the amendments are of a genuinely modest administrative nature. Some of them are needed to deal with some unforeseen stressors that have occurred within Services Australia with the provision of documents, and we think it's important that those amendments get made.

But hidden in this bill were two proposed amendments to sections 347 and 348 of the Migration Act which sought to deal with a High Court decision not on the ART bill but that interpreted certain provisions in the coalition's previously drafted AAT bill. The High Court said that, when there is a challenge to an application being made because there are minor defects in the application, provided an application is genuinely put before the tribunal, the tribunal has an obligation to deal with it. It doesn't matter if a name is missing or if there is a small piece of information missing. If it's an application in relation to someone's migration status, their refugee status, provided there's a substantive application there, the tribunal has to deal with it.

Of course, that is a beneficial interpretation. It can be absolutely critical that someone's application, once it's filed, is valid. There are so many unfair timeframes and hurdles and prohibitions relating to migration and refugee claims when they're sought to be filed or lodged with what was the AAT and is now the ART. If an application was filed but was found to have some administrative defect in it and therefore was rejected, that person might have lost all their independent review rights, and they might have been stuck with a deeply unfair determination from Home Affairs, as happens thousands and thousands of times a year.

So, to deal with that decision and that interpretation from the High Court on a mirror provision in the former AAT Act, the government proposed amendments to sections 347 and 348 of the Migration Act to provide that an application to the ART in relation to migration matters—that includes refugee matters and people desperately seeking asylum, needing protection—is only properly made where it's made within a specified period, being seven days for those in immigration detention, and is accompanied by the prescribed information and whatever prescribed documents the government sets. Then it says that, unless that information is provided, the ART would have no jurisdiction and therefore must not review an application that isn't properly made.

I want to thank all the NGOs and human rights organisations who reviewed this piece of legislation and belled the cat, saying, 'This is incredibly dangerous.' I want to thank the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Refugee Legal, the refugee and immigration national community law coalition, the Refugee Council of Australia and the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, who all raised what an unfairness this was and raised how some of the most vulnerable people in the country would have their applications rejected with no capacity for the ART to even consider them. It would just be as though they were never made. And that could be because they misspelt their name in the application, got their date of birth wrong or didn't include one of the five documents that were required. This legislation, as initially drafted, as drafted now before amendment, would have meant that those applications would have all been rejected with no discretion. It would have been like they'd never been made.

Of course the coalition jumped onto this and loved it. They like cruel processes. They like unfair, cruel processes that apply to people seeking asylum. They like unfair, cruel processes that apply to people who are seeking to migrate here or bring their family here. They actually specialise in cruelty, so of course the coalition grabbed these amendments with both hands. They love that kind of stuff.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order, Senator Kovacic?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge is reflecting on the motives of the opposition—that they are intending to be cruel and unfair. I don't think that's appropriate.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure the senator will address that in his remarks.

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

Because that's what the coalition specialises in—they specialise in meanness and division and cruelty. So they absolutely celebrate—

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kovacic, a point of order?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President, I don't feel that Senator Shoebridge has taken your advice onboard. He continues to make remarks that—

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

He's doubled down!

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, he has.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sure that Senator Shoebridge is going to get to his point soon.

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

I'll follow any ruling that's coming from you, Acting Deputy President. There's no valid point of order.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Feel free to continue, Senator Shoebridge.

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

Thank you. That's what the coalition does. It likes cruelty. It likes nastiness. They specialise in it, and these provisions of the bill were designed to be nasty to people. I know the coalition doesn't like it when we speak the truth about their motivations on particular bills. I know it's uncomfortable. I know the history of being mean to people, to refugees—being deliberately cruel, having intentionally cruel policies—is awkward for some members in the coalition, and I accept that their own personal values are sometimes challenged by what they have to vote for. I accept that on a personal level. But the institution of the coalition specialises in this cruelty. They actually deliberately inflict cruelty on refugees and migrants as part of the coalition's DNA.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If that is not impugning the motives of the opposition—

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll seek some advice from the Clerk. Senator Shoebridge is not reflecting on any particular senator, so he's in order and these are effectively political debating points.

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

I know the coalition are very touchy about this and would like to shut down criticism of their long history of cruelty in this space, and I understand why the coalition want to stop this debate, because it's awkward actually looking the coalition's decades of cruelty in the face. It's awkward. As I said, I understand that some individual senators find it really personally challenging when they have to join in with these attacks on refugees. But they keep voting for this stuff, they keep electing leaders who produce this kind of cruelty and they were doubling down and backing in these changes. We heard it from the Leader of the Opposition here in the initial contribution—that they actually want this to be mean and nasty.

But, again, I want to go back to those NGOs, those human rights organisations—

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kovacic, a point of order?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that previously Senator Shoebridge did not reflect on any individual member of the opposition, just the opposition more broadly, but he has now directly attempted to impugn, or has impugned, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, in his remarks.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind Senator Shoebridge not to impugn the motive of any member of the House, and I invite you to proceed in making your remarks.

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

To be clear, my comments were not in relation to the Leader of the Opposition, who I don't think has spoken on this today, in the other place, but the Leader of the Opposition here in the Senate and the comments that were made, and I'm echoing back those concerns.

But, again, I want to thank the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre—

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kovacic?

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to clarify, I misheard. I just want to clarify that my statements reflected the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, not the House. That was my error. Thank you.

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

Again, I want to thank the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Refugee Legal—all of those NGOs that have come in. They engaged with the inquiry and asked the government to be better, to pull this part of the bill. It is so obviously not necessary, because, the High Court has made it clear that these applications should be able to be considered, that there should be a discretion and the ability in the tribunal to consider these applications. I want to give credit to those organisations and also give credit to the government, who has, over to break, further reflected on the submissions that have been made and said that in fact the law as it exists currently, without this bill, should stand and that these provisions will be removed from the bill in the committee process. I want to commend the government, the AG's office, for listening, for taking on board the concerns and seeing those provisions removed in the committee stage. It's a modest but real win for decency and for fairness, so that the tribunal can actually consider the merits of claims and they won't be struck out on the kinds of legal technicalities that bring the law into disrepute.

The other aspect of this bill that I think is important—and, again, it will be reflected in the amendments—is that this was an opportunity to remove some of the systemic unfairness, the two levels of justice—one for people challenging migration and refugee matters and one for the balance of people—because there were so many unfair timeframes that applied to challenges, reviews of migration decisions. Often, it's just seven days that people have to bring an application, and, if you're in immigration detention, you don't have access to a phone, you don't have access to a lawyer and an adverse decision is made against you, how can you seriously bring an application within seven days? We heard again from those organisations that that doesn't work, and it can't work, and it's unfair, and it only applies in migration.

We would love to see all of those unfair time limits removed. Everybody should have access to the 28 days in which to review a decision, and there should be a discretion to extend it. I commend Senator Pocock, who's bringing amendments to that effect, but I will, again, give the government some credit. They have listened to those NGOs. They've listened to concerns that we have repeatedly raised on behalf of the Greens, and there will be amendments to move the minimum time from seven to 14 days. Again, it's still not the same as applies in non-migration matters. There will still be active discrimination against people challenging migration decisions, but I think it is much better, and it is clearly a significant improvement. The advocates and the NGOs in this space that we've spoken to absolutely want the Senate to support that amendment and to see at least that improvement happen. Again, I just want to acknowledge that this is a significant improvement for people in detention, to give the government credit and to give those NGOs credit for the ongoing campaigning and advocacy in that space. It is a win. It's something the Greens have been asking for, for over a decade, and it's a significant win.

There's one amendment from the coalition, seeking to ensure that there will be a minimum of at least one ART registry in each state and territory. This is something that my colleague Senator McKim has been regularly asking for in Tasmania. I know he's on the record repeatedly as saying the AAT—the ART now—should absolutely be guaranteed to have a registry, and the people of Tasmania are entitled to a registry. And that should be written in the law. We agree. We absolutely agree. Small states, large states and territories should all have a minimum of at least one registry. We understand, from our discussions with the government, that that is their current intent, and, for that reason, I understand the government also will not be opposing that amendment, and we actively endorse it and support it.

We are also putting forward amendments proposing a credible pathway for permanency for those who have been subjected to the coalition's cruel and unfair fast-track system. Everybody agrees that the thousands of people who were rejected under the fast-track system were rejected in an unfair process—everyone, of course, except the coalition, who still can't accept that their cruel and nasty fast-track process was unfair. There have been some people who came to Australia before 2013 who have been given a possible pathway to permanency by the government, but, for those thousands of people—some 7,000 people—who were unfairly rejected by the coalition's unfair fast-track process, there is no pathway to permanency being offered by the government. All the government says is that they may consider them at some point, one by one, as individual ministerial discretion cases. How could any minister seriously get their head around 7,000 cases? It's a ridiculous proposal from the government. They know it's not fair. They know it's not true. This would put a pathway in for those who have been unfairly rejected by fast track to have their application fairly reviewed before the ART—to be able to bring their application, bring the original documentation, add fresh documentation and finally have a fair assessment of their claims before the ART. I commend those amendments to the Senate.

While I'm speaking to those, I want to give credit to those people, particularly from the Tamil community, who have been consistently asking for this—not just the Tamil community but also the Bangladesh community and the Pakistan community. But the reason I raise the Tamil community is that they were here in parliament today. They were here in parliament today, again advocating for a fair process for fast track and again advocating for the Tamil people's rights to be respected, for their genuine concerns about the human rights abuses and the ongoing attack against Tamil culture to be recognised and for their asylum claims to be accepted. They were here today. They're doing it not just for the Tamil community but for communities across the board. I want to commend them for their work, for their advocacy and for their strength.

We don't say that our amendment is the only way. There are perhaps better ways to do it—just, on class, accepting their claims—but this is a credible, fair and available pathway for fast track to be resolved, and we commend those amendments to the chamber.

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

I will certainly not be mean in my comments. Senator Shoebridge was happy to call those on this side mean and use other pejoratives on a collective basis. I would like to stick to the substance of the issue. There are a number of issues which cause me deep concern.

First, I want to talk about process. The process we go through to pass legislation in this place is important. There needs to be adequate time for scrutiny and review of legislation that has a great impact on the lives of Australians. From the start of this process, I and others have raised our deep concern that, in relation to extraordinarily complicated legislation—hundreds and hundreds of pages long—there was insufficient time for adequate scrutiny and to make sure that this legislation, the Administrative Review Tribunal (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2024, was correct and fit for purpose.

We have just heard Senator Cash refer to some deeply disturbing consequences arising from the haste with which this legislation was pushed through this place. Just to recap: this is in the context of women's safety in child support matters. Because of the passage of the administrative review tribunal legislation, Services Australia is now inadvertently in the position where every 28 days it is forced to manually review each customer file that is before the tribunal. It's a new requirement and an incredibly intensive requirement. It involves reviewing thousands of documents and applying redactions to protect Australians from family and domestic violence risk. In this context, it is absolutely an indictment on this process that we have a situation where, for 40 per cent of the matters where there is no family and domestic violence indicator on the file, there is still a need to seek a nondisclosure order because of the inherent risk of this botched legislation to cause either parent reacting adversely to the content of those documents, which could thereby trigger a family and domestic violence incident.

This is serious. I must say, I was absolutely mortified when this was raised with me by Senator Cash. I'm sure Senator Shoebridge, to give him credit, as a member of the committee, would also be deeply concerned and mortified that this was not picked up through the scrutiny process, because we didn't have enough time. The agencies themselves didn't have enough time to consider it. We've got this amendment, item 2 of schedule 4, which, on the face of it, is reasonably benign:

Omit "came into the possession or under the control of the decision-maker", substitute "came into the possession or under the control of the decision-maker, or within a longer period specified in the practice directions—

to give the president an opportunity to issue practice directions so that the department doesn't have to go through this cumbersome process in order to mitigate this inherent risk of either parent reacting adversely to what's on the file. It is astounding stuff—deeply disturbing. Throughout this process, the warnings were there. I quote from the Law Council of Australia in this regard, who were at the forefront in terms of warning that, because of the abbreviated nature of this process, these sorts of things could happen:

On 14 December 2023, following a referral from the Commonwealth Attorney General, the Committee commenced an inquiry into the Bills, calling for written submissions by 18 January 2024. Whilst the Law Council is pleased to have obtained an extension to 2 February 2024 to lodge its submission, it remains very concerned that the Committee's truncated inquiry period will undermine or diminish the democratic and proper scrutiny of the Bills.

And that's what we have. I feel deeply for those public servants in the department who have had to deal with this issue because of the sloppiness of the process and in particular the Attorney's fixation on trying to push this bill through so quickly. This has had a real and negative consequence upon the Australian people, and the Attorney should be held accountable for that. It's an absolutely shameful state of affairs.

I'm on the record as saying, with respect to the ART Bill, that I believe that the administrative review system in this country could have been improved, that it could have been bettered, simply by reforming the existing bill instead of replacing the AAT with the ART. Secondly, the objective evidence did not support the need to abolish the AAT, and I frequently spoke in this place about the key performance indicators of the AAT, in particular in relation to appeals, and that the members of the AAT consistently performed to such a level that they met their targets with respect to successful appeal rates. I also, in this place, referred to the satisfaction with the AAT from both the legal practitioners and the users and how that did not justify the abolition of the AAT and its replacement with the ART.

There was also a strain of vindictiveness in this legislation, which I also commented on—that the Attorney decided to depart from the independent remuneration advice and guidance of the Remuneration Tribunal with respect to those members who were terminated through the abolition of the AAT and the replacement of it with the ART. There was a streak of vindictiveness embedded in the legislation which I think was unbecoming of the Attorney-General. I raised that independent organisations had raised that from a governance point of view, from a public policy point of view, but the Attorney was not for moving in relation to that vindictive streak embedded in the legislation.

So here we are, debating the third iteration of this bill, trying to get it right and having to address the consequences of the Attorney's rushed process. In that regard, I would like, as I did in my additional comments on this bill, which the coalition supports—we're also putting forward an amendment with respect to registries, and I think it's appropriate that we do so—to quote from the Hon Paul Fletcher MP's comments in the second reading debate in the other place. In doing so, I would like to place on record my deep respect and admiration for the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP for the service he has given to this parliament over an extended period of time. I think that should be noted in the Hansard as we debate this legislation. I think it is fit and proper that it is referred to in the Hansard as we look at this legislation.

When he commented on this legislation he pointed out that we were coming here for the third time, that amendments were being introduced to this bill before the bill had even taken effect. That's the situation we were in. Amendments were being introduced to the bill before this bill even came into effect. That was in the context, as I noted in my dissenting report considering the bill, where the government forced the early tabling of the committee report on the bill. We were meant to report by 24 July 2024, and then a deal was done between the government and the Greens. Senator Shoebridge was probably not involved at all in relation to that deal. I can't imagine he would be involved in a deal which would shorten the scrutiny of such an important piece of legislation. I can't imagine he would be involved in that. It must have happened without Senator Shoebridge's knowledge. But the deal was done such that the committee report had to be tabled more than two months before it was meant to be tabled.

Debate interrupted.