Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Senator SCARR (Queensland—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (10:58): There is some, or even a lot, that I support in the contribution that was being made by my friend and colleague Senator Shoebridge. I think that he has made a positive contribution and raised a number of material issues in relation to this debate on the Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025.

However, there is a key point that we teased out from the Department of Home Affairs during the last Senate estimates, and I do want to talk about this. One of the attributes of our administrative law review system is the ability of applicants seeking review to introduce new evidence. The Department of Home Affairs were quite clear that one of the issues they are facing in relation to documents which haven't been presented at the initial application stage for a student visa is that it isn't necessarily that the documents exist and they haven't been attached.

It could well be—and this is the issue the Department of Home Affairs raised—that they haven't got their enrolment, because they haven't satisfied the particular requirements of the visa. They've lodged the application without meeting those requirements, so they get refused, but then they can go into the ART system and they have that period, which is now, on average, over a year—one year and three months—to get the document.

If they have the document then, it goes back to the Department of Home Affairs. We have a system where, if someone applying for a student visa doesn't have their proverbial ducks in a row, with all the documents they need to have, and the Department of Home Affairs rejects the visa, the applicant can go to the ART, knowing the ART has to consider all new evidence, which could include the meeting of the omissions which prevented them from getting the student visa in the first instance.

This is a fundamental issue in relation to how the system works. You can put in an application without all the relevant information, because you don't have it—you don't meet the requirements. When you get knocked back, you know you can appeal to the ART, and you've got an extra year and a half, or whatever it is, to get the omissions filled.

You'll either get the visa or it will go back to the Department of Home Affairs. The system can't work that way. It's breaking.

The numbers are extraordinary. I try to avoid hyperbole, but in this case there's not enough hyperbole. Consider this: 2½ years ago in the Administrative Review Tribunal, as Senator Shoebridge touched on, there were 2,278 cases where people were seeking a review of decisions on cancellations or refusals of student visas.

That's 2,278—just hold that figure. Only 2½ years later, as at 30 November—and I checked the latest figures—there are 48,826 cases. It's extraordinary.

It has gone from 2,278 cases 2½ years ago to now 48,826 cases that have to be resolved in the ART. These are effectively court cases that have to be resolved by the system. In our last Senate estimates—and Senator Shoebridge was there—we were asking questions of the always helpful registrar of the ART.

He told us that, as at 31 October 2025, there were 46,590 cases. I checked the figures yesterday, and in just one month that had increased by 2,236 cases. In just one month they'd got an additional case load equal to the amount they had in total 2½ years ago.

In just one month it's gone up 2½ thousand. I don't know what it's going to be when we go into estimates next week, Senator Shoebridge, but it won't surprise me if the number is over 50,000, given this rate of increase. It's quite extraordinary.

Senator Shoebridge: And they would have decided some of them, too. Senator SCARR: Well, they're coming in far quicker than they're deciding them, and it's a major issue in terms of the fact that they have all of these vacancies, as Senator Shoebridge alluded to. I thought the figure was a hundred, which is bad enough, but it may well be higher than that.

There were some good members of the ART who lost their jobs when the AAT changed into the ART. There were really good members who were vindictively targeted and lost their jobs. They could have been deciding these cases.

So we're in this situation. The other point I want to make is something that Senator Shoebridge touched on, and to some extent it touches upon what Senator Lambie raised about veterans. Consider this: the Administrative Review Tribunal is there to provide administrative review of decisions in relation to migration, NDIS, social security and veterans matters.

It's so important that all Australians have access to the Administrative Review Tribunal and get their matters heard as quickly as possible. Senator Lambie: More waiting time! Senator SCARR: Exactly, Senator Lambie, and the waiting time can be deadly.

Two and a half years ago the student visa appeals constituted three per cent of the case load of the ART; it's now 38.4 per cent. It was three per cent and it's now 38.4 per cent. That means that you might be waiting for an NDIS decision, a Veterans' Affairs decision, a social security decision, a tax decision, another migration decision—say, for a skills in demand visa—but the ART is absolutely overwhelmed with these student visa applications.

It's extraordinary. Then there are the wait times. The latest figure I've got in terms of wait times for these matters to be resolved shows it's now out to 66 weeks for these student visa applications.

At the rate of lodgement, it's just going to blow out further. That's one year and three months. Senator Lambie: One year of school you're not doing.

Senator SCARR: Exactly. And what happens when someone puts in their application for the student visa appeal to be considered? They get on a bridging visa.

Bridging visas are meant to be part of the migration system to provide an interim measure for people to be able to stay in the country while their migration status is resolved. They're not meant to be a long-term solution to resolving migration status. But we now have an extraordinary statistic.

At 30 June 2019, there were 180,000 bridging visas. That's about 5½ to six years ago. We now have in this country 402,000 people on bridging visas.

Nearly half a million people in this country are on bridging visas. That is not sustainable. It's not sustainable to have that many people in the country on bridging visas.

So 180,000 has gone up to 402,000, and it keeps going up. People's migration statuses have to be resolved fairly and efficiently, and we need to limit the number of people in this country on bridging visas. The system is breaking.

The system isn't working. And these figures tell the story. This leads to another issue.

The Centre for Population within the Department of the Treasury provides very useful analysis with respect to demographic observations for Australia. They released their last statement last month. This is the 2025 Population Statement.

This issue with respect to the resolution of appeals made in relation to student visas and onshore protection visas and the growing numbers is having an impact on the Centre for Population's ability to actually forecast population. That's how bad it's getting. I want to quote to you from page 1.

It makes the first page in the overview of the Centre for Population's statement. It says: NOM— net overseas migration— is forecast to decline further in 2025-26 and 2026-27, driven by fewer migrant arrivals and an increase in migrant departures. We have seen NOM coming down over the last three years.

The last final figure at 30 June 2025 was 306,000. But this is the issue. It says: However, departures are expected to be lower than in the 2024 Statement as migrants on temporary visas are departing at lower rates than experienced in the past.

On page 5, the statement says: However, there is considerable uncertainty in the outlook for departures. Departure rates are lower than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting Australia's relatively favourable economic conditions, including the low unemployment rate. In the population statement for 2025, they actually refer to this issue of the explosion in active student visa refusal cases.

This is one of the issues. This is making it difficult for the Centre for Population to actually estimate what net overseas migration is going to be year to year. And why wouldn't it when you see that explosion in bridging visas, from 180,000 to 402,000, and the explosion in cases before the ART, which are upwards of 48,000 and on the way to over 50,000?

It will be interesting to hear the latest figures. So that's the context in terms of student visas. In relation to the provisions, I listened carefully to what Senator Shoebridge said.

I am all for procedural fairness—absolutely—but we actually have a crisis in terms of dealing with this workload. It's actually a crisis. It has gone up from just over 2,000 cases to over 48,000.

These cases need to be resolved, and they need to be resolved efficiently and effectively. So I want to make this point. In these cases, those seeking a review of their case will still have the right to put their case, and obviously they will.

It's just that, in the vast majority of cases, the case will be resolved on the papers. So whoever is the decision-maker doesn't have to go through the administrative burden of having to get a hearing room and having to make appointments with all the representatives and then, if one of them doesn't show up or there's an issue, having to do it all again. That all adds time.

The main point is that we have a system which makes sure that people seeking for their case to be reviewed have an opportunity to put their case, and they will be able to put their case under this bill. That's important. Secondly, the ART has the power under this bill to consider a hearing if it's appropriate in all the circumstances.

So the ART will still have that power through a particular process to hear a case if they consider it's appropriate in all the circumstances. Then, in terms of process, there are safeguards. The ART must invite the applicant to make submissions and provide evidence.

The ART must give adverse information—that's information that will be used against the applicant, such as the student seeking their visa—to the applicant. That's the way it should be. The applicant is to have access to written material which is used in relation to the case.

So there are safeguards in relation to the process under the bill, and I support those safeguards. I think they should provide comfort to senators who are faced with this situation that needs to be addressed—over 48,000 cases. The last point that I'll make is that it's quite clear—on my reading of the legislation, at least—that this process of hearings on the papers will not apply to appeals in relation to protection visas, humanitarian visas or permanent visas.

So we're talking about student visas and perhaps other classes of temporary visas. We're not talking about protection visas, where issues of vulnerability are particularly relevant, and we're not talking about permanent visas. We're talking primarily about this particular cohort of student visas.

I now want to say just say a few words on the ART reform process. I argued, when it was proposed that the AAT be replaced by the ART, that it was unnecessary. I said you could make really decent reforms to the AAT without abolishing it and going through all of that hullabaloo.

I really genuinely thought there was an opportunity to make those reforms. But what are the results? When the AAT was abolished, there were 67,000 cases on hand.

As at 30 November 2025, the new Administrative Review Tribunal has 126,658 cases on hand. (Time expired)