Australian Immigration Daily News

The following was received by Migration Alliance today from Kay Ransome (pic inset):

August 2013 – COMMUNITY LIAISON UPDATE

Dear Community Liaison committee members

I am pleased to provide the community liaison update for August 2013.

I welcome any feedback you would like to provide about these updates. If you have any suggestions or comments, please forward them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Principal Member Direction 1 – Constitution and Prioritisation

The tribunals have revised Principal Member Direction 01 Caseload and Constitution to focus on the key matters of interest to our applicants: constitution and prioritisation policies. The new Direction is briefer and has been renamed Principal Member Direction 1 - Constitution and Prioritisation to reflect its new focus. It is now available on the tribunals’ website. A key change is the inclusion of a reference to Ministerial Direction No. 57, which imposed a particular order on the processing of applications to the Refugee Review Tribunal from 24 June 2013.

PMD1Constitution-Prioritisation-PD-CS-2013-07-26.pdf

Decision target information will no longer be included in PMD 1. The tribunals’ decision-making goals are fluid, requiring ongoing adjustment to reflect the availability of resources as well as a range of other variable factors such as lodgement patterns and changes in government policy.  At this stage, the tribunals plan to make 24,000 decisions in 2013-14.

Caseload report

Caseload statistics for July 2013 are now available on the caseload report  on our website.

1,700 decisions were made in July, which is a great start and a large increase on the 897 decisions made in July 2012. MRT lodgements in July were 14% lower and RRT lodgements were 5% lower compared with July 2012. The MRT caseload is down 2% and the RRT caseload is up 22% compared to July 2012.

Country of Origin Information changes

The Country of Origin Information section of the MRT – RRT has transferred to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) following a decision by government.  This took place on 1 July 2013.

Tribunal members continue to have access to country of origin information from a wide range of sources and a comprehensive database of relevant country information.  Ministerial Direction No. 56 requires tribunal members to take account of country information provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where it is provided for the purposes of protection status determination and is relevant.  Members continue to be able to consider other information relevant to the cases they consider.

Country advice information previously provided by the tribunals through our website has been removed as its currency cannot be maintained.

Tribunals' Strategic Plan

The Strategic Plan P-C-GV-TribunalPlan20132016.pdf has been finalised. The plan is a key element of the planning framework for tribunals and provides overall strategic direction until June 2016.

The plan outlines our commitment to providing independent, expert review of migration and refugee decisions that is efficient and accessible, and the strategies and actions which will support this.

The tribunals’ have established a new vision which is articulated in the plan:

We will provide independent, expert review of migration and refugee decisions that is efficient and accessible. 

In pursuing our vision we will be:

•     innovative, dynamic and flexible
•     focussed on meeting the needs of our applicants
•     open, transparent and accountable
•     professional, ethical and respectful
•     collaborative, working together as one team to achieve results
•     fair, consistent and impartial in our decision-making
•     engaged with the community and key agencies

Service Charter Review

The tribunals are in the process of reviewing our Service Charter and welcome feedback from stakeholders.  Comments on the current Service Charter  are welcome and can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   by close of business 30 August 2013.

It is anticipated that the revised Service Charter will be published in late September 2013.

Agency Multicultural Plan

The first MRT-RRT Agency Multicultural Plan (AMP) has been published on the tribunals’ website. Covering the period 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2015 the plan outlines priority actions, responsibilities and targets for improving responsiveness to the needs of individuals and communities disadvantaged by cultural and linguistic barriers.

On 21 March 2013, the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, the Hon Senator Kate Lundy, announced the government's response to the recommendations of the Access and Equity Inquiry. Under the strengthened Multicultural access and equity policy, Respecting Diversity, Improving Responsiveness, all Australian Government departments and agencies are required to prepare biennial AMPs.

All agency AMPs were reviewed by the Australian Multicultural Council and endorsed by the Minister for Multicultural Affairs before being published online.

Kind regards,

Kay Ransome
Principal Member
If you have any queries or feedback please contact us.
For further information about the MRT-RRT, please visit our website.