One of the most notoriously politicized bodies, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, will be abolished after the attorney general declared that its reputation had been irreversibly damaged.
Key points:
- The body responsible for reviewing thousands of government decisions will be abolished
- The Attorney General says the AAT has been irreparably compromised
- In the new academic year, a new merit body will be established
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the former government made dozens of politicized appointments to the AAT in its time in office, and he would end “competition”.
“By appointing 85 former Liberal MPs, failed Liberal candidates, former Liberal staffers and other close Liberal associates, without any merit-based selection process … the former government fatally compromised the AAT,” Dreyfus said.
“Australians rightly expect honesty, integrity and accountability from government.”
A new review body will be established in the new year and members of the panel already appointed will be invited to continue with it.
For nearly 50 years, the AAT was tasked with reviewing government decisions, including in matters of taxation, immigration and social security.
The government of the day made appointments to the AAT for terms of up to seven years, although members could be re-elected.
Dreyfus said the new body would have a merit-based process for appointing members of the court, after he accused the former government of sometimes appointing members to review issues such as taxation despite having no expertise in the matter.
“The AAT’s dysfunction has come at a very real cost to the tens of thousands of people who rely on the AAT each year to independently review government decisions that have major impacts and sometimes change their life,” Dreyfus said.
“Decisions such as whether an older Australian receives an age pension, whether a veteran is compensated for a service injury or whether an NDIS participant receives funding for an essential report.”
Former governments of all stripes have been accused of politicized appointments, although the progressive think tank The Australia Institute found a significant increase in what it saw as political appointments after the Coalition took office in 2013.
The think tank found that around 5% of AAT appointments under the Howard, Rudd and Gillard governments had been made to people with political connections, but this jumped to more than a third of appointments under the Morrison government.
Plum jobs paying up to $500,000 were sometimes offered to people in the final days of government before a federal election.
The AAT had also faced several allegations of harassment by its members since 2016.
Judge Susan Kenney has been appointed Acting President of the AAT to guide its transition to the new system.
Dreyfus said the new review body will receive 75 additional staff to help clear the backlog, at a cost of $63.4 million.
He said legislation to establish the body would be introduced next year, although probably not until the second half of the year.