Remind me again, who was it that stacked the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) with its political mates, cronies, hacks, former staffers, failed candidates and those generally needing somewhere to go after being voted out of government?
Today, incomprehensibly, Australia’s national daily failed to nail the Coalition government as being responsible for what is very likely the most egregious and audacious stacking ever of an independent government body.
The Australian has found a sudden concern for the integrity of the AAT, given it is set to have the power to sign off on warrants for anti-corruption investigators to tap the phones of pretty well any current or former public official up to and including the prime minister. The powers are found in proposed legislation for the government’s new national anti-corruption commission.
The Oz came close to naming those responsible for the stacking of the AAT but didn’t quite manage to get there. The AAT was “politically stacked”. It had happened “in the past three years”. Alas, there was no naming and shaming. (We don’t know where this omission happened in the editorial process.)
Perhaps Crikey can help, given our work over the years in exposing the depth of the former Coalition government’s traducing of the AAT’s independence.
The trashing of the AAT began in the first years of the Abbott government when it abolished the independent body that kept watch on the AAT’s performance. Next it ceased to use an open and transparent process to appoint (and reappoint) AAT members.
Finally, under the Morrison government it abandoned all pretence and went on a spree of appointing and reappointing political mates to long terms as members, with salaries reaching $300,000 a year and more.
The Grattan Institute this year reported that a “staggering” 20% of the AAT’s 320 tribunal members had political links. It found that political appointments to the AAT had grown “substantially” in the past five years with many of these appointments “made in the lead-up to the 2019 and 2022 federal elections”, referring to appointments made by former attorneys-general Christian Porter and Michaelia Cash, as a feared election rout loomed.
Adding to the outright weirdness, The Australian quoted senior Liberals casting doubt on the very body it stacked while in government. Two senior Liberals, James Paterson and Andrew Hastie, said issuing a warrant was too serious a job to done by a member of the AAT. A third, Keith Wolahan, called for warrants to be signed off by a superior court judge.
Three senior Liberals casting doubt on the AAT’s capability? This has to be just the kind of ammunition Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus needs to make a move on the body. ALP members have previously agitated for the AAT to be abolished and for a new organisation to be built in its ashes.
So what does the attorney-general say now?
“The attorney-general is carefully considering how we undo the damage of the last nine years, and ensure the AAT once again serves the interests of all Australians, not just the Liberal Party and its mates,” a spokesperson told Crikey.
“He will have more to say about this soon.”
Well, ScoMo did tell Margaret Court’s parishioners we couldn’t trust his government. More evidence that he was, in this case, telling the truth.
How can we undo this blatant political job.
As David suggests, abolish it and start again with an inddependent body.
Don’t rely on dodgy Dreyfus.
At the Press Club today the “A/G” refused, to two questioners, to even such cleansing.
…”to even CONSIDER such cleansing.”
Why telegraph proposed actions which will hurt Liberal mates?
Let the sackings commence. Worth the short term pain the payouts will cost
You’d think at least someone at Limited News would have some recollection of what happened back then, under Abbott and thereafter? …. Someone like The Credlin…..?
Same as the (un) Fair Work Commission.
You nailed it!
Stacking the AAT with political appointees undoubtedly slows the work of the AAT as new untrained Members get up to speed.
But the real issue is the workload of the AAT and the need to re-decide so many poor decisions made at the initial stage of decision making whether by the NDIS, Vets Affairs, or Immigration.
In the area of immigration, poor decision making became so routine that a trip to the AAT almost became a standard part of the process. In most cases there is a waiting period of about 2 years at the AAT, with applicants sitting on bridging visas during this time. This period came on top of frequently significant waiting times to have the initial visa application decided in the first place.
In other cases, even if there is no legal entitlement to a visa, applicants would routinely seek a review at the AAT to game the system and gain extra time in Australia, often taking advantage of this time to meet the highly complex requirements for applying for permanent residence. Of course, if you were offshore and separated from family, the waiting period for a lawful decision was terrible and compounded the insult of the initial refusal.
Even if the Government abolishes the AAT and re configures it, these issues will remain until the Government puts more resources into basic decision making and provides more resources to the AAT or whatever it becomes.