Rowland and Comcare

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2008] AATA 208

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)No   2007/5716 & 2007/1809

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION		)
Re		IAN ROWLAND

Applicant

And COMCARE

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Deputy President P E Hack SC

Date18 March 2008

PlaceBrisbane

Decision

The Tribunal

1.     dismisses the application to reinstate application 2007/1809, and

2.     refuses the application, made in 2007/5716, to extend time within which to seek a review of the decision of Comcare of 7 May 2007.

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

Deputy President

The letter to Mr Rowland informing him of this decision also informed him that he could ask for a reconsideration of that determination. Mr Rowland did not do so within 30 days of receipt of the request, the normal time for so doing. He did not request a reconsideration until his solicitors did so by letter dated 30 November 2006.

3.That request was treated by Comcare as a request for an extension of time within which to seek a reconsideration of the earlier determination. The request was refused on 7 May 2007. Comcare’s decision in relation to the extension of time is a “reviewable decision”, as that term is used in Part VI of the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (the SRC Act) and thus able to be reviewed by this Tribunal.

4.Mr Rowland sought a review by an application filed by his solicitors on 8 May 2007. Those proceedings were given the number 2007/1809 and the application proceeded through the Tribunal’s ordinary conference processes.

5.On 3 August 2007 (by letter dated 2 August 2007) Mr Rowland’s solicitors gave the Tribunal “formal notice of our client’s withdrawal of the application”. It was common ground that the letter constituted the notification in writing required by s 42A(1A) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth) (the AAT Act) and that by operation of s 42A(1B) of that Act,

“the Tribunal [was] taken to have dismissed the application without proceeding to review the decision.”

The Registry of the Tribunal notified the parties in those terms by letters dated 6 August 2007.

6.Subsequently, by correspondence dated 14 November 2007 and received in the Tribunal on 16 November 2007, the solicitors for Mr Rowland sought a review of the decision dated 7 May 2007. The “reasons for application”, which in some respects are inapt to Mr Rowland’s circumstances, were in the same form as the earlier application save that an extension of time was also sought. This application was allocated the number 2007/5716 in the Tribunal’s records.

7.Although in form the application was one to extend time, the argument for Mr Rowland was presented by Mr King-Scott of counsel as one for reinstatement. However, it was submitted, if reinstatement was refused for want of jurisdiction or on discretionary grounds, the application for an extension of time ought be considered.

Reinstatement

8.The Tribunal has a wide discretion, conferred by s 42A(10) of the AAT Act, to reinstate an application that has been dismissed, but the exercise of that power…