Ullah and Secretary, Department of Education and Training

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision by the Secretary, Department of Education and Training, to refuse to re-credit Mr Ullah's FEE-HELP balance. Mr Ullah had enrolled in two online units with the University of Southern Queensland, with a census date of 5 August 2016. He withdrew from both units on 10 September 2016, after the census date, and sought re-crediting of the FEE-HELP balance for those units. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal was required to determine whether Mr Ullah had experienced special circumstances that were beyond his control and made it impracticable for him to continue his studies.

The Tribunal considered several factors put forward by Mr Ullah as constituting special circumstances. These included his wife's thyroid condition during pregnancy, difficulties he encountered with an online assessment, his work as a contractor offering limited flexibility, and the health condition of his newborn daughter. The Secretary argued that Mr Ullah was aware of potential pregnancy complications prior to enrolling, that the risks to his wife's health did not demonstrably worsen after the census date, that his daughter's jaundice was a short-term issue, and that general conditions in Pakistan would not have rendered study impracticable.

The Tribunal noted that for FEE-HELP re-crediting, Mr Ullah had to satisfy the special circumstances test under section 104-25(1)(c) of the relevant Act, which required meeting criteria set out in section 104-30 and elaborated in the Guidelines. The Tribunal found that the Guidelines provided a specific and binding guide for applying the term "special circumstances," displacing case law from other contexts. It was also noted that the formulation "if and only if" in section 104-30 implied that all specified conditions were both necessary and sufficient. The Tribunal examined the medical evidence regarding Ms Ikram's thyroid condition, noting that the diagnosis was made early in 2016 and that the provided test results suggested hyperthyroidism rather than hypothyroidism, contrary to Mr Ullah's submission.