Explanatory Statement
Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Migration Amendment (Notification Review) Act 2008
Proclamation
Schedule 1 to the Migration Amendment (Notification Review) Act 2008
(the Amendment Act) amends the Migration Act 1958 (the Act) to clarify and provide greater certainty in some notification procedures to minimise errors and ensure that visa applicants and visa holders are effectively notified of matters relevant to their dealings with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal.
Schedule 1 provides, in cases where other notification provisions would not apply to a minor, that if the Minister forms a reasonable belief that an individual has day-to-day care and responsibility for a minor, then the Minister may communicate with that individual (instead of the minor) to notify that individual of the Minister’s decision about the minor. Schedule 1 contains similar amendments in respect of notifications from the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal.
Schedule 1 also provides that the deemed time of notification provisions will operate despite non-compliance with a procedural requirement for giving a document to a person where the person has actually received the document. However, if the person can show that he or she received the document at a later time, then he or she will be taken to have received the document at that time.
Item 2 of the table in subsection 2(1) of the Amendment Act provides that items 1 and 2 of Schedule 1 to the Amendment Act commence on a day to be fixed by Proclamation. However, if items 1 and 2 do not commence within the period of six months beginning on the day on which the Amendment Act receives the Royal Assent, they commence on the first day after the end of that six month period. The Amendment Act received the Royal Assent on 31 October 2008.
The other items in the table in subsection 2(1) of the Amendment Act, in effect, provide that the remaining provisions in Schedule 1 commence immediately after or at the same time that the provision(s) covered by items 1 and 2 commence.
The Proclamation fixes 5 December 2008 as the day on which items 1 and 2 of Schedule 1 to the Amendment Act commence.
The Proclamation is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.