McGuirk v University of New South Wales (GD)

The case before the court involved McGuirk, a former student of the University of New South Wales, who challenged the university's decision to refuse to continue dealing with his application. The university argued that the application was incomplete, leading to the decision to cease processing it. The dispute was heard and determined by the General Division of the Federal Court of Australia.

The primary legal issues before the court were whether the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) had jurisdiction to review the university's decision, and if the AAT's decision to refuse to review the university's decision was itself valid. The court needed to determine whether the university's decision was subject to internal review within the university and if the AAT had jurisdiction to hear the appeal if such internal review was not available.

The court found that the university had an internal review process available to McGuirk, which he had not undertaken. As a result, the AAT did not have jurisdiction to review the university's decision. The court concluded that since there was an available internal review process, the AAT's decision to decline reviewing the university's decision was correct. The court determined that the AAT's decision was valid, and the Tribunal's jurisdiction was limited by the availability of the internal review process.

The final order of the court was to set aside the Tribunal's decision on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to review the university's decision to refuse to continue to deal with McGuirk's application.