Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin – Leader of the Greens) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the Attorney‑General and the minister for bringing this on. The Greens will also be supporting this bill. As the shadow attorney‑general, Ms Haddad, has just said, it is solely comprising very minor changes: two names, from the pre-existing Administrative Appeals Tribunal to the now existing Administrative Review Tribunal.
Yes, Ms Haddad – what a horror show it was in 2013 to something like 2022. Under the federal Liberal government, it was a series of revolving doors for people who were Liberal mates of the federal Liberal government at the time, people who had left careers as MPs. The former Energy minister Matthew Groom here, one time Environment minister, I believe, got a role on the AAT. So many people did not go through a merits‑based process. That is the point. There was no sufficiently strong, and sometimes no credible merits‑based process that operated for the appointment of people to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Over time it became more egregious and more extreme. It was really obvious to people who were looking at the lag in work being done: the bloating and the stalling of making decisions on such critical issues as Centrelink abuses, particularly by the then government. These are administrative abuses which are having appalling effects on people’s lives.
It was a great thing that the incoming Labor government and Mark Dreyfus did when he came into his role by spilling the AAT and starting the process all over again. I think a lot of people in Australia who had been watching – let us face it, not many people understand what the AAT even was as a body, but for those who did watch, they could see the perversions of justice. They could see the acts of politicisation, the undermining that was occurring of what ought to be and what had been the incredibly important independent role of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. There was no critical check on the politicisation of that through a merits-based review. Ultimately, there was no critical check on the abuses of power by governments at that time, at the end of that period, particularly in the last nine years where it was stacked with people who were not the right people to sit there and be in judgement of other people or to take carriage of the cases that came before them.
What was irreversibly damaged has now been substantially improved. The Greens say there is room for improvement. We will continue to fight at the federal level, and always in Tasmania, to make sure that ministers do not get to have a say over the constitution of the boards and the people who sit on the boards to make decisions about who should be appointed to committees, and do not have any way of controlling the process of appointment of people on those committees. It is essential to have an independent authority who can act as a stop on the perversions of unjust decisions that can be made by government officials.
The change to the Administrative Review Tribunal is so welcome. Nothing is perfect in that space. Nothing ever is. It is about constant vigilance. The government of the day – any government of the day, the Labor Party, the Liberals – power, unless it is checked, can become abusive. It is so important that we stand and have those institutions, the courts and the administrative review tribunals. They are so essential to creating a safe, secure body politic where we can flourish and live our lives without being subject to cruel, unreasonable, unfair, or unjust decisions. We ought to be able to have the same service and the same treatment as another person.
We really welcome this bill, small as it is. It closes for Tasmania a pretty terrible chapter of the abuse of power in Australia’s history under what was, in the end days, the Scott Morrison Liberals. The really bad times. I am not saying that we have really great times now, but there are such things as least worst. There is no doubt about that. I am very glad that we are living in a least worst Australia and long may it remain that way.
