About this report

This report is on the operations of the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal for the financial year 2007-08. The Tribunals are separately established under the Migration Act 1958, but are administratively amalgamated, and since 1 July 2006, have been prescribed as a single agency for the purpose of the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997.

When developing this Annual Report, we set out to meet our parliamentary reporting requirements, and to have careful regard to continuity from previous Annual Reports. We also set out to produce a report that is readable and useful to all those with an interest in the operations of the Tribunals.

The Annual Report is presented in 6 main parts:

Part 1 is a report by the Principal Member. It includes a review of the Tribunals' performance and a summary of significant developments.

Part 2 is a report by the Registrar. It summarises significant corporate and organisational developments.

Part 3 is an overview of the Tribunals and describes how the Tribunals operate and the nature of cases that are dealt with by the Tribunals.

Part 4 contains the performance report. It includes a summary of overall performance results, a summary of financial resources and an overview of activity over the year, including case statistics.

Part 5 contains information on management, organisational and accountability issues.

Part 6 contains the Tribunals' audited financial statements for the year.

The Appendices set out a range of additional information.

Aids to access information

The contents page is located here. A glossary of terms and abbreviations is located here. An index of compliance with the Requirements for Annual Reports for Departments, Executive Agencies and FMA Act bodies issued by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in June 2008 is located here.

Statistics

All statistics used in this report are of 'cases'. Multiple applications for review are counted as a single case where the legislation provides that the applications for review can be combined, usually when members of a family unit have applied for the grant of visas at the same time.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2008

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney General's Department, Robert Garran Offices, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at http://www.ag.gov.au/cca.

ISSN 1833-8518 (Print)

ISSN 1834-2183 (Online)

ISBN 0-9751136-8-2 (Print)

ISBN 0-9751136-9-0 (Online)