Wantee and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered an application by the Applicant for an extension of time to seek review of a delegate's decision refusing his application for Australian citizenship by conferral. The Applicant, who arrived in Australia in 2008, lodged his citizenship application in 2017. The Department of Home Affairs requested further identity documentation or a statutory declaration explaining its absence, which the Applicant failed to provide beyond submitting previously supplied documents. Consequently, the delegate refused the application on 13 February 2019. The Applicant subsequently applied to the Tribunal for an extension of time to lodge his review application on 27 December 2020, a period of 655 days after the refusal notification.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether it was reasonable in all the circumstances to grant the Applicant an extension of time to lodge his application for review, pursuant to section 29(7) of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth). This required the Tribunal to consider various factors, including the length of the delay, the explanation provided for the delay, any prejudice to the Respondent, and the merits of the underlying application.

The Tribunal applied the principles established in *Hunter Valley Developments Pty Ltd v Minister for Home Affairs and Environment* and subsequent case law, which outline a non-exhaustive list of considerations for granting extensions of time. The Tribunal found the 655-day delay to be significant and weighed against granting an extension. While acknowledging the Applicant's stated difficulties in obtaining documents from Côte d'Ivoire, it found this explanation insufficient to justify the considerable delay in lodging the appeal. The Respondent conceded no prejudice would arise from granting the extension, but the Tribunal gave considerable weight to the public interest in maintaining timeframes for administrative decision-making and the interests of applicants who comply with such time limits.

The Tribunal concluded that, despite the lack of prejudice to the Respondent, the significant length of the delay and the unsatisfactory explanation for it meant it was not satisfied that it would be reasonable in all the circumstances to grant the extension of time. Accordingly, the application for an extension of time was refused.