GDHF and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

[2023] AATA 2983

GDHF and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship) [2023] AATA 2983 (18 September 2023)

Division:GENERAL DIVISION

File Number:          2022/5759

Re:GDHF

APPLICANT

AndMinister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs

RESPONDENT

DECISION

Tribunal:Senior Member D. J. Morris

Date:18 September 2023

Place:Melbourne

Pursuant to section 43(1)(c)(ii) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975, the Tribunal sets aside the decision under review and remits the matter to the Respondent for reconsideration with a direction that the prohibition in s 24(3) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 does not apply.

............................[sgd]............................................

Senior Member D. J. Morris

Catchwords

CITIZENSHIP – applicant is a citizen of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar – applicant granted visa to reside in Australia – applicant applied for citizenship by conferral – delegate of respondent decided not satisfied of applicant’s identity – citizenship application refused – applicant sought review by Tribunal – citizenship policy instructions – three pillars of identity – biometrics – documents – life story – paucity of overseas documents provided by applicant – documents provided during hearing – obligation on applicant to put their case forward – decision under review remitted with direction

Legislation

Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth)

Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth)

Cases

BQG21 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs [2023] FCA 865
Drake and Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs; Re: (No.2) (1979) 2 ALD 634

Minister for Home Affairs v G and Another (2019) 266 FCR 569

Secondary Materials

Revised Citizenship Procedural Instructions (CPIs) – CPI 16 – Assessing Identity under the Citizenship Act

National Identity Proofing Guidelines – 2016 – Attorney-General’s Department

REASONS FOR DECISION

Senior Member D. J. Morris

18 September 2023

1. The Applicant in this matter is referred to by the anonym ‘GDHF’. She was born in June 1992 and is a citizen of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and is of Karen ethnicity.  GDHF first arrived in Australia in 2010 on a refugee visa.

2. In June 2015 GDHF applied for Australian citizenship by conferral. In February 2018 the Department of Home Affairs (‘the Department’) sought further information from the Applicant on her life story and identity documents.

3. In June 2018 GDHF provided the Department with a completed Form 80 – Personal particulars for assessment including character assessment. In June 2019 the Department sought further information. In July 2019 GDHF provided a further Form 80. In May 2020 the Department invited the Applicant to comment on adverse information. In the second Form 80 she provided she recorded a person who will be referred to as ‘Mr TS’ as a ‘brother’. She agreed during the hearing that this was an error and that he is a cousin and her brother-in-law. Such sloppiness in providing information to the Department only leads to suspicion when family compositions change.

4. On 12 August 2020 a delegate of the Respondent made the reviewable decision to refuse GDHF’s application for citizenship on the basis that the delegate was not satisfied of the Applicant’s identity and therefore was prohibited from approving the application by force of s 24(3) of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (‘the Act’).

5. On 27 July 2022 GDHF sought review of this 12 August 2020 decision by this Tribunal. The Tribunal (differently constituted) decided to exercise the discretion to extend time for GDHF to lodge her application for review, given that it was substantially outside the statutory time period of 28 days.

   HEARING

6. A hearing was held on 29 August 2023. The Applicant was self-represented. The Respondent was represented by Mr Ingmar Duldig, a lawyer from Clayton Utz. The Tribunal appreciated the assistance provided by an interpreter of the Burmese language.

7. The Tribunal admitted the following documents into evidence:

   (a) Volume of ‘T’ documents provided under s 37 of the Administrative Appeals TribunalAct 1975 (‘AAT Act’), lodged on 20 September 2022 – Exhibit R1;

   (b)       DFAT Country Report – Myanmar, dated 9 August 2023 – Exhibit R2;

   (c)       Departure card dated 6 February 2011, lodged 10 August 2023 – Exhibit R3;

   (d)UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Household Registration Document – Exhibit R4;

   (e)       Statutory declaration of the Applicant dated 19 January 2023 – Exhibit A1;

   (f)       Photograph of the Applicant with siblings – Exhibit A2; and

   (g)       Titres de Voyage of the Applicant issued 19 October 2011 and 7 April 2014 – Exhibit       A3.

   (h)       Statutory declaration of the Applicant dated 21 June 2023 (Exhibit T1).

   LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY FRAMEWORK

8. Section 21(1) of the Act provides that a person may make an application to the Minister to become an Australian citizen. Section 24(1) of the Act provides that the Minister must approve or refuse to approve the person becoming an Australian citizen.

9. The Decision Record shows (TD, pp 23-33) that the Minister’s delegate found that GDHF satisfied them that she met certain requirements under the Act. It was found that she was aged 18 years or over at the time of the application (s 21(2)(a)). It was found that she was a permanent resident at the time of the application and the decision (s 21(2)(b)). It was further found that she satisfied the general residence requirements (s 21(2)(c)).

10. The delegate did not assess ss 21(2)(d), (e) and (f), which relates to an applicant demonstrating that they understand the nature of the application, possess a basic knowledge of the English language and have an adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship. These subsections are taken to be satisfied if the person has successfully completed a citizenship test approved by the Minister (s 21(2A)). During the hearing, GDHF said she had since successfully completed the citizenship test. There was no corroboration of this assertion, but the Respondent did not demur.

11. In terms of the requirement in s 21(2)(g) of the Act that a person must be likely to reside in, or continue to reside in Australia, or to maintain a close and continuing association with Australia if the application is approved, the delegate has marked two boxes: that this requirement is satisfied and also that it was not assessed. This clearly is an error in the Decision Record.  It may simply be a typographical error and therefore curable. If not, the effect of this decision to remit will give authority for that provision to be re-assessed. The delegate also did not consider the requirement in s 21(2)(h) of the Act that the Applicant be of good character at the time of the decision.

12. The delegate was also satisfied that GDHF met the requirements in s 24(4) which relates to whether the person is directly or indirectly a risk to security; s 24(4A)(a), which relates to national security offences; and s 24(4A)(b), which also relates to national security offences. The delegate further found that the prohibitions in ss 24(5), 24(6) and 24(7) of the Act do not apply.

13. Section 24(3) of the Act relates to identity:

    Identity

    (3)         The Minister must not approve the person becoming an Australian citizen                unless the Minister is satisfied of the identity of the person.

14. Division 5 of the Act sets out in detail the identity provisions. In considering GDHF’s application for Australian citizenship, the Minister’s delegate consulted Citizenship Procedural Instruction CPI 16 – Assessing Identity under the Citizenship Act (‘CPI 16’) issued by the Department and last updated on 1 January 2022.

15. CPI 16 aligns with the National Identity Proofing Guidelines issued by the Attorney-General’s Department in 2016 (‘Guidelines’). Chapter 5 of the Guidelines is titled ‘People who are unable to meet minimum proofing requirements’ and says, at paragraph 5.1.1:

    Although the majority of people should be able to meet the requirements of these Guidelines, in some cases people may face genuine difficulty in providing the necessary evidence to identify themselves to the required level of assurance. Each organisation MAY develop alternative identity proofing processes for these ‘exceptions cases’ (if appropriate) informed by a risk assessment and SHOULD review these processes regularly.

16. CPI 16 relevantly states, under the heading ‘Purpose’:

    Establishing a person’s identity before the approval of a citizenship application requires the delegate to be satisfied of the person’s identity.  The identity provisions under the Act prohibit the approval of a citizenship application in cases where the delegate is not satisfied of the person’s identity. 

    Delegates are required to understand and apply the relevant law as set out in the Act.  Many of the requirements in the Act are expressed in objective terms and do not allow any discretion for delegates. To the extent that the Act allows for discretion, delegates must give due consideration to the Department’s approved policy and procedures where relevant and appropriate in decision-making. Consideration of policy ensures that decision-making is consistent to the extent that it is appropriate and arbitrary outcomes are avoided. 

    However, policy and procedures do not have the force of law. When exercising powers or making decisions under legislation, officers are to give policy documents due weight, but must not apply policy inflexibly and may consider the merits of each individual case. In order to make a fair, reasonable and lawful decision, it may be appropriate to depart from the approved policy and procedures, depending on the facts of the particular case.

17. The Tribunal, unlike Department officers, is not bound to follow policy. However, where a policy has been promulgated and has been applied in making a decision that is under review, it has long been the practice of Tribunal Members to have due regard for that policy unless there are cogent reasons to depart from it. Cogent reasons may include where the policy is inconsistent with the law, or where rigid application of policy would have an unfair or perverse outcome.

18. This well-accepted general approach was enunciated by the Tribunal’s first President, Justice Brennan. What he said in Re: Drakeand Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (No.2) (1979) 2 ALD 634, relevantly set out below, has been endorsed by successive judicial opinion:

    In my view, the Tribunal, being entitled to determine its own practice in respect of the part which Ministerial policy plays in the making of Tribunal decisions, should adopt the following practice:

    When the Tribunal is reviewing the exercise of a discretionary power reposed in a Minister, and the Minister has adopted a general policy to guide him in the exercise of the power, the Tribunal will ordinarily apply that policy in reviewing the decision, unless the policy is unlawful or unless its application tends to produce an unjust decision in the circumstances of the particular case. Where the policy would ordinarily be applied, an argument against the policy itself or against its application in the particular case will be considered, but cogent reasons will have to be shown against its application, especially if the policy is shown to have been exposed to Parliamentary scrutiny.

    The general practice of the Tribunal will not preclude the Tribunal from making appropriate observations on Ministerial policy, and thus contributing the benefit of its experience to the growth or modification of general policy; but the practice is intended to leave to the Minister the political responsibility for broad policy, to permit the Tribunal to function as an adjudicative tribunal rather than as a political policy-maker, and to facilitate the making of consistent decisions in the exercise of the same discretionary power.

19. The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia made the status of the CPIs clear in Minister for Home Affairs v G and Another (2019) 266 FCR 569 (Murphy, Moshinsky and O’Callaghan JJ) in observing, at [18]:

    18. There is no power conferred by the Australian Citizenship Act to make the Instructions.  Despite appearing in a form that resembles a legislative instrument or that has a statutory source, the Instructions are made in an exercise of executive power.

    And at [58]-[62]:

    58. It is established that an executive policy relating to the exercise of a statutory discretion must be consistent with the relevant statute in the sense that: it must allow the decision-maker to take into account relevant considerations; it must not require the decision-maker to take into account irrelevant considerations; and it must not serve a purpose foreign to the purpose for which the discretionary power was created...
    
    59. An executive policy will also be inconsistent with the relevant statute if it seeks to preclude consideration of relevant arguments running counter to the policy that might reasonably be advanced in particular cases: Drake (No 2) at 640. Thus, an executive policy relating to the exercise of a statutory discretion must leave the decision-maker ‘free to consider the unique circumstances of each case, and no part of a lawful policy can determine in advance the decision which the [decision maker] will make in the circumstances of a given case’; Drake (No 2) at 641.

    60. However, as Brennan J stated in Drake (No 2) at 641, ‘[t]hat is not to deny the lawfulness of adopting an appropriate policy which guides but does not control the making of decisions, a policy which is informative of the standards and values which the [decision-maker] usually applies’....

    62. An executive policy that is inconsistent with the relevant statute in the sense described above is unlawful: see Drake (No 2) at 641. It is open to the Court to make a declaration to this effect, but whether it is appropriate to do so depends on an application of the general principles regarding the making of declarations...

20. Therefore, the Tribunal will consider the information the Applicant has provided against the guidance in the citizenship procedural instructions. If the Tribunal makes a decision in favour of GDHF, the reviewable decision would be set aside and remitted to the Respondent with a direction. The Tribunal is not empowered to grant citizenship; it can only decide whether a required provision in the Act is met.

    Identity

21. CPI 16 refers to the ‘three pillars’ of identity. They are set out at paragraph 5:

    Biometrics – a measurable characteristic that is unique to a person such as fingerprints or face.

    Documents – reliable and secure documents as defined by the Security Standards for Proof-of-Identity Documents. A reliable identity document is issued with robust identity proofing processes along with issuance protocols and security features.

    Life story – an account of the events that happened to a person during their lifetime.

22. Therefore, the task of the Tribunal is to make a contemporary assessment as to whether, standing in the shoes of the Minister, it is satisfied (as at the date of this decision) of the identity of the Applicant.

    Biometrics

23. The Respondent submitted that GDHF had provided limited biometric information and no documents which pre-date her arrival in Australia, and that therefore a high degree of scrutiny must be applied to the Applicant’s life story.

24. However, as transpired at the hearing during cross-examination when pressed by Mr Duldig on whether she might have any photographs showing her before she came to Australia, the Applicant produced a photograph she said was of her and two siblings when they were residing in a refugee camp in Thailand, after fleeing Myanmar. GDHF said she estimated it was taken when she was aged around 15 or 16. The photograph was taken into evidence (A2). The Respondent in closing submissions said that he accepted that the photograph was of GDHF and her siblings and that it was reasonable to conclude it was taken when she was then living at the refugee camp in Thailand.

25. The Respondent, acting correctly as a model litigant, a day prior to the hearing submitted a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’) Household Registration Document (‘HRD’). Mr Duldig said that it had come to light after a search was done by the Department of the files of other members of the Applicant’s family, and this card was found on her father’s departmental file.

26. The HRD lists six persons all with birthdates. It is tolerably clear that they are the Applicant’s parents, the Applicant and two sisters and a brother. Photographs of each member of the family are on the HRD, and the Tribunal is satisfied that the photograph of GHDF depicts the Applicant as a young girl, when comparing it to more contemporary photographs including those in the two Titres de Voyage she provided to the Tribunal.

27. In addition, in terms of GDHF, the Applicant is listed by name as a female, the oldest child of the family, with a named date of birth in June 1992, that she was at that time aged 17 and that she arrived at the camp in Thailand on 1 February 1997 from Myanmar.

28. The Tribunal is satisfied that this HRD, in conjunction with the photograph of the Applicant in the refugee camp and the more recent identity material the Applicant has provided since she arrived in Australia significantly support the identity of GDHF under this pillar.

    Documents

29. The Applicant provided various documents in support of her identity. She provided an Australian Government ‘Document for travel to Australia’ which has a photograph, her name and her date of birth (TD, p 13). She provided a State of Victoria driver licence which contains a photograph and her name and date of birth (TD, p 15) and a Services Australia pension concession card (TD, p 15). She also provided, as mentioned above, Titres de Voyage issued in 2011 and 2014 which have photographs and her name and date of birth, and a Medicare card (TD, p 17). These Australian-sourced documents are all useful in terms of illustrating a consistent way a person may be known in Australia in their interactions with government entities, but their usefulness is limited when, except for the ‘Document for travel to Australia’, there is no chain linking them back to the Applicant’s identity prior to her settling in Australia.

30. The HRD produced by the UNHCR and provided by the Applicant’s father to the Department is, however, of greater value, because it is a document produced by an independent source which records GDHF in the context of her place within her family, and is evidence consistent with assertions that the Applicant made about her parents, her age, and her siblings and their ages. Until the Respondent uncovered this HRD, there had been no corroboration of the Applicant’s identity in a documentary sense.

31. The Respondent noted that GDHF had still not provided any documents from Myanmar or from when she attended school at the refugee camp in Thailand. In her oral evidence, the Tribunal asked the Applicant whether she had contacted the Myanmar Embassy in Canberra at least to inquire whether it might be able to obtain some identity documents. Her response was: “We don’t need to contact them. We are nothing to do with them…I don’t think I can get help from them.”

32. The Tribunal pressed the Applicant as to whether she thought of contacting the Embassy but then perhaps decided not to. She responded: “No. I never thought of it because I am here. I don’t think they would help me. I don’t want to get any help from them. I am not a Myanmar citizen.”

33. The Tribunal asked GDHF why she contended that she was not a citizen of Myanmar. She responded, “I only lived there for four years and have no documents. I never view myself as a Myanmar citizen.”

34. GDHF was then asked if she had any documents from the Government of Thailand, and whether she had contacted the Royal Thai Embassy in Canberra. She said she did not, and had not. She also had not contacted the UNHCR. When asked whether there were avenues she could have taken that she did not take, GDHF responded, “No. I don’t have any way to obtain identity documents.”  She accepted that the Tribunal does not have much information relating to the first 16 or so years of her life.

1. The Tribunal rejects the Applicant’s assertions that she is not a citizen of Myanmar, or that she is ‘stateless’, but her attitude perhaps reflects the circumstances in which her family fled from that country when she was very young.

   Life story

2. The Applicant claims to have been born on a named date in June 1992 (TD, p 113). She said that she and her family all fled to Thailand in 1997, to Nupo refugee camp (TD, p 12).  The Applicant claims to have been educated to fourth grade in the refugee camp, and also helped her parents sell vegetables they grew and fish that they caught, in order to make some income (statutory declaration dated 21 June 2023).

3. The Applicant said that she was never issued a birth certificate and asserted that her parents have no identity documents and are ‘stateless’.

4. GDHF said she returned to visit Nupo refugee camp in Thailand on two occasions, the first from 6 December 2011 to 19 January 2012 – a period of 45 days. The second visit was from 20 April 2014 to 5 June 2014 – a period of 47 days.

5. The Respondent contended that the Applicant had failed to adequately explain why she visited the village in which she said she was born, Kyaik Don Village, in December 2011. GDHF said that a travelling companion she described as a ‘passenger friend’ filled out the departure card for her and he misunderstood what GDHF was instructing him to write and wrongly inserted her place of birth as her intended destination.

6. It emerged during oral evidence that the ‘passenger friend’ was in fact her cousin who is also her brother-in-law, Mr TS. He is married to the Applicant’s sister. GDHF told the Tribunal that Mr TS was filling in a large number of forms at the time and might have misunderstood when he erroneously filled in ‘Kyaik Don Village’ as the name of her intended destination. She was adamant she did not return there.

7. The Applicant lodged two statutory declarations which stated she has not returned to Myanmar since leaving that country as a child. The first was from Mr OW and dated 8 July 2023 and the second was from Mr ZA and dated 7 July 2023.  Mr OW said he had known GDHF ‘since she arrived in Australia’. Mr ZA said he had also known the Applicant since she arrived in Australia.  Mr Duldig pointed out that the text of the two statutory declarations was identical and this was suggestive that they may have been written by a third party. GDHF denied this and said both declarants knew that statutory declarations must be truthful.  She went on in her evidence to say that she actually knew Mr OW before she came to Australia, in Thailand.

8. The Tribunal gives no weight to these statutory declarations. If the Applicant’s evidence that she knew Mr OW before she came to Australia is accurate, then his declaration is incorrect. In any event, there is no evidence that either Mr OW or Mr ZA would have any personal knowledge as to whether GDHF visited Myanmar when she returned to Thailand, other than what she or members of her family might have told them. Both documents therefore carry no probative value.

9. During cross-examination, Mr Duldig asked GDHF whether she had her travel document stamped during her 2011 visit to Thailand and that, if she travelled across the border to Myanmar, it was likely the travel document would have been stamped by the Burmese immigration authorities as well. The Applicant then produced the Titre de Voyage issued in October 2011.

10. The Tribunal took a copy of the Applicant’s Titres de Voyage into evidence (A3). The earlier of the two (issued 19 October 2011) records the following: a tourist visa issued by the Royal Thai Consulate in Melbourne on 17 November 2012 which must be used before 17 February 2012; an immigration stamp from an airport in Thailand recording GHDF’s entry into that country on 6 December 2011; an immigration stamp from an airport in Thailand recording the Applicant’s departure from that country on 18 January 2012; and an Australian immigration stamp from Melbourne Airport recording GDHF entering Australia on 19 January 2012.  There is no stamp or visa or other evidence of the Applicant visiting Myanmar during this trip, which the Respondent accepted.

11. In the light of this evidence, it is the Tribunal’s view that the Respondent’s assertion that the Applicant visited Myanmar in 2011 completely falls away. It is understandable that the Respondent raised it, because of the erroneous completion of the departure card by the Applicant’s brother-in-law where he said she was intending to visit Kyaik Don Village. But the documentary evidence of the Titre de Voyage in recording an entry stamp into Thailand and none to Myanmar supports the Applicant’s evidence, and not the Respondent’s contentions.

    CONSIDERATION

12. In the recent case of BQG21 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs [2023] FCA 865, Mortimer CJ said, at [32]:

    Ultimately, the concept of “identity” is about an assessment of whether the repository of the power to confer citizenship is satisfied the human being who is the individual applying for citizenship is the person they say they are, with the relevant background to their citizenship application they rely on, and not a different human being with a different background which may affect their citizenship application.

13. The Tribunal accepts that there are lacunae in the Applicant’s life story, notably the lack of any personal documentation from her birth until the photograph she provided during the hearing when she was about 16 and living in the refugee camp in Thailand and the HRD produced by the Respondent which provides her age as 17 at that time.

    Responsibility of an applicant

14. When GDHF was invited to make an opening statement at the commencement of the hearing, the entirety of that opening statement was:

    “I have submitted enough documentation; I want a decision from the Senior Member now.”

15. However, the fact remained that, before the hearing, the Applicant had provided no documentation prior to her arrival in Australia whatsoever. It was only through the proper conduct of the Respondent in unearthing the UNHCR Household Registration Document and, in the course of the hearing, the Applicant producing a photograph showing her and two siblings from their time in the camp in Thailand, that any non-Australian government documentary evidence prior to the Applicant embarking for Australia came before the Tribunal. For this to happen at such a late stage is unsatisfactory.

16. When an applicant brings an application for review to the Tribunal, it is implicit in so doing that he or she is asserting that the reviewable decision is wrong. Section 33 of the AAT Act concerns the procedure of the Tribunal. Section 33(1AB) states:

    Parties must assist the Tribunal

    A party to a proceeding before the Tribunal, and any person representing such a party, must use his or her best endeavours to assist the Tribunal to fulfil the objective in section 2A.

17. The objective in s 2A of the AAT Act, amongst other things, requires the Tribunal to pursue the objective of providing a mechanism of review that is fair, just, economical, informal and quick, and promotes public trust and confidence in the decision-making of the Tribunal.

18. The Tribunal’s task is made more difficult when an applicant does not make an effortful attempt to assist the Tribunal to review the decision that he or she wants reviewed.

19. There is a responsibility on an applicant to put his or her best evidence forward to make their case. This is especially so when, in this case – at least in relation to the photograph of GDHF and her siblings in Thailand – the Applicant had such important evidence readily at hand. 

20. The evidence as set out above that GDHF had made no attempt to contact either the Myanmar or Royal Thai embassies in Canberra also illustrates what I might call a detached, even lackadaisical, approach taken by the Applicant. There is, in the Tribunal’s view, an obligation on an applicant for citizenship to gather and provide the best and most comprehensive information they have in support of their claims, and to use their best endeavours to obtain what other supporting information they can in support of their application. It may well have turned out that the embassies would be unable to provide any identity information about GDHF, but the fact that the Applicant did not even try to find out is indicative of a lack of effort and engagement on her part.

    CONCLUSION

21. Having said that, taking all the information into account, the Tribunal is satisfied that the biometric information, including photographs of the Applicant at various ages before and after she arrived in Australia, support her asserted identity. The HRD carries significant weight in support of her identity. It is a document produced by a reputable international agency placing her within her family and including photographs of GDHF and her parents and siblings. Her life story lacks documentary corroboration but raises no ‘red flags’ in terms of what has been her consistent narrative about her life, from birth in Myanmar, fleeing to Thailand as a young girl with her family, and thence coming to Australia. As the Tribunal has observed in the past, and as the Guidelines acknowledge, allowance must be made for a displaced person not having primary documents for certain periods of his or her life, especially if the person was a minor at the time.

22. The Tribunal is satisfied this is a case where more weight should be given to the Applicant’s biometric and life story ‘pillars’. I find that the paucity of personal documentary information from Myanmar and Thailand is not a determinative barrier in terms of the assessment of GDHF for Australian citizenship by conferral.

23. After careful consideration, I have reached a state of satisfaction in relation to the Applicant’s identity. I am satisfied on a holistic view of the weight of all the evidence that GDHF is who she says she is, and where she fits within her family (noting both her parents attended the hearing). I am therefore satisfied that the prohibition provided in section 24(3) of the Act should not apply in relation to GDHF.

    DECISION

24. Pursuant to section 43(1)(c)(ii) of the AAT Act, the Tribunal sets aside the decision under review and remits the matter to the Respondent for reconsideration with the direction that the prohibition in s 24(3) of the Act does not apply.

59.     I certify that the preceding 58 (fifty-eight) paragraphs are a true copy of the written reasons for the decision of Senior Member D. J. Morris

60.      

..................[sgd]......................................................

Associate

Dated:   18 September 2023

Date of hearing:	29 August 2023
Solicitors for the Applicant:	The Applicant was self-represented
Counsel for the Respondent:	Mr Ingmar Duldig
Solicitors for the Respondent:	Clayton Utz