BIR19 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs

This matter concerned an application for remedies under section 476 of the *Migration Act 1958* (Cth) brought by the applicant against the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. The dispute arose from a decision of the Immigration Assessment Authority (IAA) affirming the Minister's decision not to grant the applicant a Safe Haven Enterprise visa. The application was heard by Manousaridis J.

The primary legal issues before the court were whether the IAA considered "new information" without first determining if section 473DD of the Act was satisfied, whether the Secretary failed to consider the relevance of certain information to the review or unreasonably decided it was not relevant, and whether the provision of irrelevant material by the Secretary to the IAA gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. The applicant alleged these matters constituted jurisdictional error.

Manousaridis J found that the applicant failed on each of the grounds relied upon. The court reasoned that the information considered by the IAA did not constitute "new information" in the relevant sense, and that the Secretary's assessment of the relevance of the material was not unreasonable. Furthermore, the court determined that there was no reasonable apprehension of bias arising from the material provided. Consequently, the court concluded that no jurisdictional error had occurred.

The application was dismissed. The applicant was ordered to pay the Minister's costs in the amount of $7,467, with liberty to the parties to apply within 21 days to vary or discharge this costs order.