Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway—Attorney-General) (09:19): I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The Administrative Review Tribunal (the ART) commenced operation on 14 October 2024, replacing the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal as Australia's primary federal merits review body. The ART provides an independent mechanism of review of government decisions made under over 400 Commonwealth acts—a function that is critical to Australia's system of government.
The government established the ART to ensure that members of the community have an avenue to seek review of government decisions in an effective, efficient and fair way. The government recognises that not every review is the same and that the ART should provide a meaningful opportunity for review in a way that is appropriate to the circumstances of the case. The government is therefore committed to ensuring the ART has the tools and the flexibility it needs to deliver these objectives.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA) (Division 2) also plays an important role in hearing and determining judicial reviews of certain government decisions, including decisions of the ART. It is important that the FCFCOA is well-equipped to perform this function, which is critical to our system of government, and promotes public trust and confidence in government institutions.
Merits and judicial review processes should be proportionate. The time and resources expended to determine a matter should reflect the complexity of the issues, and the importance of what is at stake. Efficient review procedures are important to reduce delays in decision-making, provide genuine applicants with the benefit of a timely and effective remedy, and strengthen the integrity of administrative and judicial review systems.
The purpose of the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 is to enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of the migration review framework by supporting the ART and FCFCOA to more effectively respond to their significant and increasing caseloads. The bill would also support the ART to manage its significant workload across case types, through measures that would create efficiencies, improve processes and increase flexibility.
Improving ART efficiency and operations The bill makes amendments to the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024and other Commonwealth legislation to expand tribunal powers, improve tribunal processes, increase efficiency, avoid administrative delays, and aid the management of caseload surges and backlogs—particularly in migration matters. The bill will enable the ART to give reasons for a decision orally—rather than alwaysin writing—with written statements of reasons to be given at the request of a party.
These changes ensure that ART resources are not unnecessarily expended to produce written reasons when parties do not require them. These changes apply to matters in the ART's migration caseload, as well as other caseloads where written reasons may not always be required. The bill provides safeguards for vulnerable applicants of the ART and will notapply these changes to reviews relating to social security, veterans entitlements, the National Disability Insurance Scheme or aged care where written reasons may play an important role.
The changes will also not apply to other reviews that may be prescribed by regulations. The bill would, among other matters: enable the President of the ART to authorise registrars to exercise additional powers, including to reinstate applications in certain circumstances, and to dismiss applications if satisfied that there are no reasonable prospects of success. permit any member (or other authorised person) of the ART to correct an obvious error in a decision or statement of reasons for a decision made by a registrar. allow for additional matters to be considered when the government is progressing the reappointment of a non-judicial member of the ART, and allow for the government to more efficiently change the appointment status of members; and introduce a requirement for an application to the ART for review of a reviewable migration or reviewable protection decision to be made using an approved form, to ensure the tribunal has all the information it needs to consider a matter.
Protecting the integrity of the protection and migration review system The bill would introduce a new requirement for the verification of the identity of an applicant for merit or judicial review of a prescribed protection or migration decision in the ART and FCFCOA. The particulars around when, where and how the identity verification process would operate would be set out in regulations under the Migration Act.
Failure to comply with the identity verification requirement in ART proceedings would result in the tribunal being required to dismiss the matter. As an important safeguard, the existing reinstatement powers already available to the ART would continue to operate in circumstances where a matter should not have been dismissed in the first place. Applicants who fail to comply with the identity verification requirement in FCFCOA proceedings would require leave of the Court to continue proceedings.
Where leave is not granted, the FCFCOA would be able to dismiss the proceedings. The FCFCOA would also be able to reinstate proceedings which had been dismissed. The difference in approach between the ART and FCFCOA reflects the constitutional limits arising from the status of the FCFCOA as a court established under Chapter Ill of the Constitution.
Courts must retain a high degree of discretion in the management of proceedings. This means that the FCFCOA will also be able to extend time for satisfying the identity verification requirement or dispense with the requirement altogether where appropriate. This new requirement would ensure applicants are genuinely engaging with merits and judicial review processes by establishing a mandatory engagement point between the applicant and the review pathways.
As a regulation, it would of course be open to the parliament to scrutinise and consider the arrangements—and disallow them if appropriate. This proposal ensures that genuine applicants understand precisely what it is they are seeking to do, and that the ART and the FCFCOA can have confidence an individual seeking review is who they say they are. It will provide an important touchpoint, and a further opportunity to protect the integrity of the merits and judicial review systems through identification checks.
Conclusion Taken together, these reforms will support a more efficient, effective and robust review framework by encouraging active participation in the process, and dissuading frivolous applications—while ensuring appropriate balances are in place. The ART has a crucial role in enabling members of the community to seek fair, quick and inexpensive review of government decisions.
The FCFCOA has a crucial role in providing an avenue to review the legality of government decisions. This bill will support the tailoring of ART procedures and operations to the different circumstances of the cases before them. It will also support the ART and the FCFCOA to address significant case loads, enhance efficiency and avoid administrative delay, ensuring that decisions can be made in an efficient and timely manner.
I commend the bill to the chamber. Debate adjourned.