Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026

Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR (Barton) (19:23): I appreciate the indulgence to extend that time. I rise to speak specifically on this piece of legislation, the Administrative and Judicial Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. Before I get into the details of the bill, I want to take the House back to a room that most people in this parliament may never have had to sit through—not as a member but as a solicitor waiting for a client's case number to be called.

For over a decade before I was elected as the member for Barton, I practised as an employment and industrial relations solicitor. I appeared in a number of jurisdictions—in particular, the Fair Work Commission, the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court proceedings—on both sides of the table—sometimes for the worker and sometimes for the small-business owner trying to do the right thing by their staff.

In that time, I learnt something that no textbook can ever really quite capture, and that is that, for the person sitting across from you, reviews are not really conceptual constructs but literally the only thing standing between them and a decision that could actually cost their job, their visa or even their peace of mind. I remember what it was like to sit with a client, usually the day before a hearing, going through their story again and again because they needed to believe someone was actually going to listen to them.

That is what this merits review is: it is the promise that when government gets it wrong—and government does sometimes get it wrong—there is a place to say so and to be heard and be taken seriously. That is why what happened to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal under the former government mattered so much and why fixing it matters just as much. Trust in an institution is very important, and this isn't a concern I hold alone.

This year, McKinnon released its landmark report called The state of Australia's democracy, and the picture it painted was quite sobering. It found that trust in our institutions is genuinely declining and that, when Australians are asked what actually determines who they vote for, two things top the list: first, whether a party or candidate has a real plan for the country's long-term problems; and, second, whether they can demonstrate integrity and accountability.

It's not slogans or personalities that people rely on; it's the integrity and plan. That finding should sit with every one of us in this chamber, because it is a direct message from the public about what they expect government to be, and nowhere is that exception more concrete than in the systems people rely on when governments get a decision about their life wrong.

If you want to rebuild trust in the theoretical, we have to start rebuilding trust in the concrete—in the institutions people actually have to walk into. Merits and judicial reviews are not decorations of our system of government; they are how ordinary people actually test the decisions made about their lives and how government itself learns when its own processes have gone wrong.

A functioning review system doesn't just protect the individual in front of it; it actually improves the quality of every decision that comes after it. That is precisely why the removal of the AAT was necessary. Under the Liberals and Nationals, merits reviews became something else entirely.

It almost felt like a bit of a consolation prize. Over nine long years, successive coalition attorney-generals appointed more than 80 mates and failed candidates to this tribunal, and, instead of being an institution Australians could trust to hold government to account, the AAT became a bit of a soft landing pad for the politically connected, funded by the taxpayer.

Every one of those appointments came at a cost, not just in dollars but in confidence—that trust that I'm talking about. Every Australian who walked into the tribunal deserved to know that the person hearing their case was there because they were the best person for that job, not because of who they knew. This is not a partisan observation; it is simply what the evidence showed.

This government has done the hard work of cleaning that up. We abolished the AAT. We legislated new merit based appointment processes for its successor, the Administrative Review Tribunal, and it's working.

The tribunal is now deciding more matters than in any previous year on record. But I want to be honest with the House: rebuilding an institution's credibility is not a one-off act. You don't restore trust with a single piece of legislation and then walk away.

Reform has to be treated as an ongoing responsibility, not a box that's been ticked. That is exactly the spirit in which this bill is brought forward. This legislation is not sexy or glamorous.

It will not make headlines outside of this building, possibly. But it's exactly the kind of unglamorous but practical work that determines whether an institution serves people well or badly. The first set of measures goes to efficiency.

Currently, the tribunal must give reasons for its decisions in writing in every case. This bill would allow reasons to be given orally in most matters, with parties retaining the right to request written reasons if they need them; for instance, if they intend to appeal. I think this is a sensible reallocation of members' time and resourcing as well towards matters that genuinely require a detailed written judgement rather than spreading that effort thinly across every other case, regardless of complexity.

These changes will apply principally to the migration caseload because that is the tribunal's largest body of on-hand work and it's where the efficiency gains are most significant. Importantly, the bill deliberately excludes social security matters in recognition that they already run through a distinct review process. It also excludes National Disability Insurance Scheme matters, veterans' entitlements and aged-care areas that so often turn on complex assessments of medical and personal circumstances and where the discipline of a written decision genuinely matters.

Further exclusions can be made by regulation if experience shows they're needed. The bill also requires migration and protection review applications to be lodged on a prescribed form. That might sound a little like a minor administrative detail, but anyone who has worked in this space knows how much tribunal time is lost chasing missing information that should have been provided at the outset.

A prescribed form means the information the tribunal actually needs arrives up front and members can spend their time deciding cases, not tracking down paperwork. There are also a number of smaller efficiency amendments in this bill relating to document timeframes and to the president's jurisdiction across all areas of the tribunal's work. None of these changes are dramatic on their own and together they are about making sure the machinery of review actually works the way it means to.

The second substantive measure in this bill introduces identity verification requirements for applicants seeking review of prescribed migration and protection decisions. If an applicant fails to comply, the tribunal will be required to dismiss the matter. The detail of how, when and where the verification occurs is left to regulation, which gives the system flexibility as it's implemented.

It also means this parliament retains the power to disallow these regulations if they don't operate as intended. I want to be direct about why this matters. A review system only retains public confidence if people believe the process is being used genuinely, that applicants are who they say they are and that they understand what they're actually asking the tribunal to do.

Identity verification is a commonsense safeguard for that integrity. But fairness has been built into this measure too, and that matters just as much to me. An applicant whose matter is dismissed for failing identity verification is not simply locked out forever.

They can seek reinstatement and explain the personal circumstances—illness, language barriers, whatever the genuine reason may be—and the member hearing the reinstatement application can order they be given another opportunity to complete the process. Where a matter proceeds to the Federal Circuit and Family Court, the settings are appropriately different. Again, the court may dismiss proceedings for non-compliance and it retains a broader discretion than the tribunal to extend timeframes or dispense with the requirement altogether, and that distinction isn't an accident.

It reflects the different constitutional character of a chapter III court exercising judicial power compared with an administrative tribunal exercising merits review. And getting that distinction right is not a technicality; it's what keeps this reform on solid constitutional ground. Taken together, these are proportionate measures.

They protect the integrity of the system without abandoning the person who has a genuine reason for non-compliance. They dissuade the frivolous applications without punishing the person doing their honest best to navigate a process that can be quite daunting even for those of us who once did this for a living. Barton is one of the most diverse electorates in the country.

In Hurstville, Kingsgrove, Rockdale, Bexley, Clemton Park and Kogarah, I represent people whose lives are very much touched by this system constantly. Families navigating migration decisions, older constituents dealing with aged-care assessments—for many of them, English is not a first language. For many of them, the idea of a tribunal is pretty scary and intimidating enough without wondering whether the person deciding their case got there on merit or on mateship.

That is the trust this bill is trying to rebuild one practical measure at a time. It's the same trust that sits at the heart of good government generally: the belief that decisions are made properly and that when they're not there's somewhere to go. I have stood in those rooms.

I've watched people's faces when a decision goes against them, and I've watched the relief when a process, however slow, finally treats them fairly. That experience is why I support this bill without reservation. It is not a perfect or a final answer.

No single piece of legislation ever is. But it is a genuine, considered step towards a review system Australians can actually rely on.