Singh and Minister for Foreign Affairs

Mr Singh sought review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of a decision by a delegate of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to cancel his Australian passport. The passport had been cancelled on 28 July 2016 after the Australian Passport Office received notification that it had been lost or stolen. Mr Singh maintained that he had not reported his passport as lost or stolen, that it had remained in his possession, and that he suspected his former wife had maliciously made the report. The delegate affirmed the cancellation decision on 10 July 2017, leading to Mr Singh's application for review by the Tribunal.

The primary legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the decision to cancel Mr Singh's passport should be affirmed or set aside, and whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction to direct the Minister to issue a new passport. The Tribunal was required to determine if the passport had, in fact, been lost or stolen, as this was a prerequisite for the exercise of the discretionary power to cancel a passport under section 22 of the *Australian Passports Act 2005* (Cth). The Tribunal also considered its own jurisdiction, which is limited to reviewing the decision under review and exercising the powers of the original decision-maker.

Deputy President J W Constance found that the Tribunal did not have jurisdiction to order the issuance of a new passport, as its powers were confined to reviewing the cancellation decision. Regarding the cancellation, the Tribunal was required to make a decision based on the evidence before it at the time of the hearing. The Deputy President was satisfied, on the evidence, that Mr Singh's passport was in his possession and was neither lost nor stolen on 28 July 2016, and remained in his possession until he surrendered it on 6 February 2017. The Tribunal disagreed with the interpretation in *Morales* that a report alone was sufficient to establish a passport as "lost or stolen" for the purposes of the Act, finding that the wording of section 22(1)(b) required a finding that the document "has been lost or stolen."

Consequently, the Tribunal set aside the decision to cancel Mr Singh's passport. The Tribunal noted that while the Department had offered to waive the application fee for a new passport, it could not direct the Minister to issue a new passport.