Australian Immigration Daily News

The following email has just been received from the MRT-RRT:

Dear Community Liaison network members

I am pleased to provide the community liaison update for February 2014.

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. .

Online Lodgement – now available

On 31 January 2014 online lodgement of new applications for review by the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Review Tribunal (the tribunals) became available on the tribunals’ website. Online lodgement is a convenient service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Applications can be lodged online from any computer that has internet connection, an up-to-date browser and JavaScript enabled.

Application lodgement by hand, post and fax is still available. The MRT application fee can also be paid when lodging online, through a secure online payment system that accepts MasterCard and Visa credit cards. In the first week of operation we received 112 lodgements nationally which was 25% of total lodgements.

Caseload report

Caseload statistics for the financial year to 31 January 2014 are now available on the Statistics and caseload summaries page of our website. The number of decisions made by the tribunals continues to increase with 13,887 decisions made to the end of January; a 53% increase compared with the same period last year.

The active caseload has reduced to 17,858 from 19,410 at the start of the financial year. Due to an increase in lodgements, the RRT active caseload continues to rise with 3,333 active cases; 26% more when compared with the same time last year. New South Wales continues to receive the most applications nationally, receiving 52% of RRT applications and 35% of MRT applications this financial year.

Learning and Development

Members specialising in the Family, Partner and Visitor caseloads will be attending a professional development day in February focusing on legal training, topical case issues and systems training. Further professional development days are planned in the coming months for members specialising in the Refugee, Student and Business caseloads. 

Community Liaison Meetings

The next round of meetings will take place during April and May 2014:

• Melbourne – Wednesday, 30 April 2014, 2:00pm to 3:30pm
• Sydney – Tuesday, 6 May 2014, 2:00pm to 3:00pm
• Brisbane – Thursday, 8 May 2014, 1:00pm to 2:00pm
• Perth – Monday, 19 May 2014, 12:30pm to 1:30pm
• Adelaide – Wednesday, 21 May 2014, 2:00pm to 3:00pm

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.