Andrew and National Disability Insurance Agency

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the application of Andrew (the applicant) against the National Disability Insurance Agency (the respondent). The applicant sought review of the respondent's refusal to appoint him as a plan nominee and correspondence nominee for a participant in the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The core of the dispute was whether an internal reviewable decision had been made by the respondent, which was a prerequisite for the Tribunal to have jurisdiction to hear the matter.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether the respondent's correspondence to the applicant, which stated that his request to be appointed as nominee could not be acceded to, constituted an "NDIA decision" that was subject to internal review under section 100 of the *National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013* (Cth). The Tribunal was required to determine if the respondent had in fact made a decision that could be reviewed, or if the correspondence was merely an administrative communication that did not trigger the internal review process.

The Tribunal reasoned that for a decision to be reviewable, it must be a formal decision made by the NDIA in accordance with the Act. The correspondence received by the applicant did not contain the necessary elements of a formal decision, such as reasons for the decision or information about the applicant's right to request an internal review. Consequently, the Tribunal found that no internal reviewable decision had been made by the respondent. As such, the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to proceed with the application for review.

The application was therefore dismissed on the basis that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear the matter, as there was no reviewable decision before it.