A Summary of the Means of Review

The first port of call is always the decision maker if you want to know why a decision was made. There are several ways in which you can frame the question to yourself:

• Did the decision maker have all the facts before them?
• Did the decision maker give me reasons for their decision?
• Did the decision maker have an interest in the decision? Was there a conflict of interest?
• Did I get a fair hearing of my concerns before the decision was made?

Once the original decision maker has been approached, asked for a review or a reason for decision, Commonwealth government administrative action or decisions may be tackled in one of the following ways:

• complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman
• appeal to the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal
• judicial review by the Federal Court of Australia;
• judicial review by the High Court.

There are many other review bodies at the Commonwealth level. Means of review via appeals bodies are often given by the Act under which the body operates such as the Social Security Appeals Tribunal under the Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) or Migration Review Tribunal under the Migration Act 1955 (Cth) and Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth).

Once the original decision maker has been approached, asked for a review or a reason for decision, a dispute with a Tasmanian government body may, apart from any rights given by the particular Act, be dealt with by:

• complaint to the Tasmanian Ombudsman;
• administrative review by a tribunal or body;
• administrative review in the Magistrates’ Court;
• judicial review in the Supreme Court.

All civil and administrative review bodies in Tasmania are now co-located and hosted within the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.