Immigration Appeals: The New Administrative Review Tribunal

We had hoped that the new Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) would be a significant improvement over the old Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which was overwhelmed with thousands of immigration appeals, often being assessed by Members who were friends of the Labor government. 

The new ART was supposed to be made up of Members based on merit, which would be a significant improvement—provided the new appointments are not again filled with Labor mates.

I proposed the creation of a new Refugee and Immigration Review Tribunal to handle only Migration disputes. This would alleviate the heavy caseload that is delaying decisions in the new ART and help expedite the overall review process.

Transcript

Thank you, Deputy President. We hoped that the new Administrative Review Tribunal would be a significant improvement over its predecessor, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The old Administrative Appeals Tribunal was a failure. It was top-heavy with Labor lawyers, making it a Labor lawyer fest with appointments made based on a reward system for leftist-aligned lawyers, and there are plenty of them—lawyers doing the bidding of their Labor masters, pushing poor Labor policies, and enshrining woke and harmful leftist ideals. 

The Liberals and Nationals stacked appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, favouring lawyers sympathetic to the LNP. So much for justice under the uniparty! This stacking was a recipe for disaster and a significant reason why Labor’s jumbled and catastrophic immigration policy continues to fail Australians and continues to hurt Australians catastrophically. Look at the number of people who are homeless and who are sleeping under bridges, in caravans, in their cars and in tents. If a noncitizen’s visa has expired or has been breached, to slow down the deportation process, the decision to deport could be delayed through an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That is a fact, and it was done many times, ensuring that there was a high chance that bleeding-heart Lefties would delay or overturn the decision. Few Australians know that there are currently more than 75,000 illegals in Australia right now. More than 75,000 foreigners are living here in Australia on cancelled or expired visas, taking up homes that could be used by those people who are currently homeless. The whereabouts of these illegals is unknown, and the government doesn’t care, with limited resources to locate these illegals for deportation. 

It’s welcome that the current membership of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal will be declared vacant and that vacancies will be filled on a merit based system. My concerns are that the Administrative Review Tribunal membership will still be loaded with Labor government favourites and that the workload will still create long waiting periods before appropriate reconsideration of major decisions. It would be better to remove the review process for immigration decisions from the Administrative Review Tribunal and consider the reintroduction of a refugee or immigration review tribunal, to ensure that the Administrative Review Tribunal does not become bogged down with migration appeals, as it is currently. Instead of a delay mechanism for illegals to exploit, abuse and avoid at Australians’ expense, we need to deport illegals. We need to deport more than 75,000 lawbreakers and free up housing for Australians—working families who are currently sleeping in their cars, in tents or under bridges. Australian families deserve roofs over their heads and beds for their children.