Piers Akerman: Penalising AAT members weakens our country’s borders

Penalising tribunal members who uphold deportation orders encourages unlawful entry to Australia, writes Piers Akerman.

Under cover of Covid, the so-called progressive Green-Left-Labor axis has mounted relentless attacks on the foundations of our liberal democracy.

Providing no costing of their ambitious changes to the global economy, the climate extremists would shut down what remains of Australia’s manufacturing.

Social activists would pervert the education system and the radical alphabetically designated lobbyists would deny biology and demand that chromosomal evidence be ignored as they insist that men with testicles can be women and women with uteri can be men. Activist judges at every level are taking it upon themselves to find meanings in laws that defy the Constitution and that were not legislated by our elected politicians.

And there is another iniquitous campaign afoot that has gone under the radar – the attempt to weaken Australia’s border controls by undermining the authority of members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Members of the AAT are appointed by the Governor-General; the president is David Thomas, formerly a Queensland Supreme Court justice and now federal court judge, who currently doesn’t sit in the federal court because he is the president of the AAT.

The AAT hears appeals from those dissatisfied with findings related the Immigration Act.

Among the AAT’s many responsibilities, it hears appeals from those dissatisfied with findings related to Freedom of Information, the NDIS, child support, and the Immigration Act.

This last role – hearing appeals from those found to have entered the country unlawfully – is the most problematic. Thomas has instituted a review process that purports to examine the performance of AAT members based on the time taken to present findings under a “dashboard” that shows the number of matters finalised by each member over a period of time.

As former High Court justice Ian Callinan found in a review of the AAT three years ago, this “dashboard” presents a target disguised as a “benchmark” and it has proved to be a distraction to the members from their work.

“The work of a member, as with that of a judge, is not to be evaluated exclusively on a quantitative basis. The complexity of matters is variable. Quantitative evaluation can only be a partial and not always reliable measure of performance … I do not think that it serves any practical purpose,” Callinan wrote.

The reality that this “benchmark” ignores is that while it is quick and easy to rubberstamp an approval of an appeal, it should be obvious that it would take longer and require greater application to disallow an appeal. That is how true justice works.

By naming and shaming those members who do not meet the arbitrary benchmarks – those more likely to write decisions rejecting appeals of those who have been found to be unlawful arrivals – the review process is more likely to target conservative members and give the green light to left-leaning appointees who set aside appeals and permit those who entered the country unlawfully to have their immigration status changed.

Little surprise that Labor’s left-wing senator Kim Carr has been using leaked benchmarks to name AAT members whose decisions he opposes.

Some senior members have been rewarded by being assigned “special” projects that significantly reduce their workloads.

Former High Court justice Ian Callinan.

Callinan found that discounting workloads needed to be more transparent so taxpayers knew they were getting value for money. He also blasted the bloated AAT bureaucracy, which, as usual, has taken upon itself roles that usurp the authority of the appointed members.

It has been suggested that a single, simple legislative change could significantly cut the AAT’s immigration review cases. Currently, unsuccessful visa applicants for temporary visas such as visitor or student visas are given bridging visas that have work rights and enable them to stay in Australia for many years, after which time they claim they should be entitled to stay. If the legislation was changed to abolish bridging visas for some temporary visas, applicants would have to go offshore and wait until their cases were decided. Without this attraction to continue living and working in Australia, it would substantially cut the number of review applicants.

Penalising the AAT members most likely to reject appeals weakens border controls and sends the wrong message to people smugglers. More lives will be lost unless this issue is addressed.