MCLZ and Secretary, Department of Home Affairs

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision by the Secretary, Department of Home Affairs, to refuse an aviation security identification card (ASIC) to the applicant, MCLZ. The applicant had an adverse criminal record, specifically a conviction for armed robbery in 1991 for which he was sentenced to imprisonment for 4 years and 6 months. The applicant argued that his conviction should be considered "spent" due to the passage of time and his subsequent law-abiding life. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) was required to determine whether the applicant's conviction qualified as a spent conviction under the relevant legislation, thereby excluding it from consideration for the ASIC application.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was the interpretation of the definition of a "spent conviction" as provided in section 85ZM(2) of the *Crimes Act 1914* (Cth) and its application within the context of the Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005. Specifically, the Tribunal had to ascertain whether the applicant's conviction for armed robbery, which resulted in a sentence of imprisonment exceeding 30 months, fell within the exclusion for spent convictions. The Tribunal was not tasked with assessing the applicant's character or rehabilitation, but rather with applying the statutory definition of a spent conviction.

The Tribunal reasoned that the definition of a spent conviction in section 85ZM(2) of the *Crimes Act 1914* explicitly excludes convictions where the person was sentenced to imprisonment for more than 30 months. As the applicant's sentence for armed robbery exceeded this threshold, his conviction was not a spent conviction under the Act. Consequently, the conviction remained relevant for the purposes of the ASIC application, and the Department had no discretion to overlook it. The Tribunal found that the applicant had no reasonable prospect of success in his application for review, as the statutory requirements were clear and had been correctly applied by the respondent.

Accordingly, the Tribunal dismissed the application for review pursuant to section 42B(1)(b) of the *Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975* (Cth), finding it to be futile and an unnecessary expenditure of resources.