Administrative Review Tribunal (Cth)
A short factsheet on the Administrative Review Tribunal: its establishing Act, the 2024 transition from the AAT, its 'correct or preferable decision' test, and its enabling-Act-by-enabling-Act jurisdiction.
Learning outcomes
- State the ART's establishing Act and its function as the Commonwealth's general merits-review tribunal.
- Explain the 'correct or preferable decision' test from Drake and why it still defines merits review under the ART.
- Recognise 'AAT' in older material as the same institutional role under its previous name.
Act: Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 (Cth).1
Established: the ART began operating in October 2024, replacing the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), which had operated since 1976. A student reading "AAT" in a case, textbook or older statute is reading about the same institutional role the ART now performs.
Purpose: The ART is the Commonwealth's general merits-review tribunal — it re-decides eligible administrative decisions on their merits, standing in the shoes of the original decision-maker, rather than only checking whether the original decision was lawfully made.
The "correct or preferable decision" test
In Drake v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1979) 24 ALR 577,2 Bowen CJ held that the Tribunal's task is to reach the correct or preferable decision on the material before it — not merely to check the original decision-maker's reasoning for legal error. This is the defining feature that separates merits review from judicial review: the Tribunal can substitute its own decision for the original one.
Jurisdiction is enabling-Act-by-enabling-Act
Like every state and territory tribunal, the ART does not have one free-standing grant of review power. It draws jurisdiction from a large number of separate Commonwealth enabling Acts, each conferring review rights over specific kinds of decisions (for example, migration, social security, and taxation decisions each have their own enabling provisions). Before assuming the ART can review a federal decision, a student must check whether an Act or legislative instrument provides for the ART to review that kind of decision (ART Act s 12), starting with the Act under which the decision was made — the same discipline the WA, NSW and other state hubs already teach for their own tribunals.
How it relates to the other Commonwealth bodies
The ART decides whether a decision was correct on the merits. It does not investigate how the decision was handled procedurally (that is the Commonwealth Ombudsman's role), and it does not investigate corrupt conduct (that is the National Anti-Corruption Commission's role).
Self-check
- Have I used "ART", not "AAT", for anything decided or described after October 2024, while still recognising "AAT" in older material as the same role?
- Have I stated the correct-or-preferable-decision test and cited Drake, rather than describing merits review only in the abstract?
- Have I checked the specific enabling Act rather than assuming the ART has jurisdiction by default?