Consideration of Ground 2
40 I consider, with respect, that the Tribunal was in error in imputing to Ms Ferrari the opinion that the applicant represented "a 'low' risk of recidivism somewhere between 13% and 30%". It is the case that Ms Ferrari had affirmed the correctness of the synopsis given by the Tribunal in Q9, but that synopsis concerned "someone in [the applicant's] circumstances", and not the applicant, as an individual. That is to say, it was a synopsis addressed to the statistical risk of a person in the cohort of persons in the applicant's circumstances reoffending. The same may be said in respect of Ms Ferrari's responses to Q7 and Q8.
41 Further, the whole context of Ms Ferrari's evidence is inconsistent with her having expressed any opinion, in percentage terms, about the risk of the applicant, as an individual, reoffending. When asked to express the risk of the applicant reoffending in percentage terms, Ms Ferrari responded by saying that she did not "do percentages". She had also said that she could not answer the related question of how close the chance of the applicant reoffending was to zero. She then said that the risk of reoffending declines with age and referred to statistical studies which evidenced that that was so.
42 The Tribunal appears not to have understood that that was the purpose of Ms Ferrari's reference to the studies and to have then engaged Ms Ferrari in an attempt to quantify in statistical terms the applicant's risk of reoffending. Ms Ferrari did give a statistical range of 13%-30% but that was directed to a person who had offended between the ages of 58 and 63 - see Q4 and its answer. It is evident that, in giving that range, Ms Ferrari was doing a simple extrapolation from a study which indicated that at age 40 the statistical risk of recidivism was 30% and from the second study which indicated that at age 65 it was 13%. On that basis, it could be said that the statistical risk of a person who offended between the ages of 58 and 63 was "somewhere between 13% and 30%".
43 It is also plain that Ms Ferrari was suggesting that the statistical risk would "decrease significantly" from the figure of 13% at age 65 - see the answer to Q4. Ms Ferrari said much the same in her answer to Q6. Moreover, in her answer to Q6, Ms Ferrari referred to personal factors bearing upon the risk of reoffending, including "support, whether they are employed, whether they have any mental health issues, whether they are treated, etc". She continued by saying that she expected the risk of the applicant reoffending would continue to decline over time, noting that his offending had commenced approximately 12 years previously, that he was about to turn 70, and that he had experienced the sanction of five years in custody.
44 This evidence of Ms Ferrari provides additional context indicating the error by the Tribunal in attributing to her the opinion that the applicant's risk of recidivism was somewhere between "13% and 30%".
45 There are in any event limitations on the use which can be made of statistical evidence of the kind to which the Tribunal referred. That is particularly so in the use of statistics concerning likely human behaviour. By way of example, evidence that a particular cohort of persons has a 13% chance of recidivism is equivalent to a statement that 13 out of 100 persons in the cohort will reoffend but that evidence, by itself, says nothing about the likelihood of a particular member in the cohort reoffending. As was pointed out by King CJ in State Government Insurance Commission v Laube (1983) 37 SASR 32 at 33, "the statistical fact that a particular proposition is true of the majority of persons cannot of itself amount to legal proof on the balance of probabilities that the proposition is true of any given individual". His Honour went on to note that the fact that most people with a blood alcohol level of 0.15% are incapable of exercising effective control of a motor vehicle does not establish against any individual with that blood alcohol level that that individual is so incapable.
46 These passages in Laube were referred to with approval by the High Court in Amaca Pty Ltd v Ellis [2010] HCA 5; (2010) 240 CLR 111 at [62] when emphasising the need, in a causation enquiry, for evidence suggesting that the individual does not stand apart from the ordinary. In R v GK [2001] NSWCCA 413; (2001) 53 NSWLR 317, Mason P referred to Laube at [26] when holding that the "process of assessing the weight of different items of evidence and reasoning to a conclusion on the civil or criminal standard cannot be reduced to mathematical formulae".
47 In the present case, had the Tribunal relied only on the evidence of the statistical risk of the applicant reoffending, I would have thought that there was a good deal to be said for it having failed to address the question required of it, namely, the risk of the applicant personally reoffending, because it had considered instead the risk of a cohort of which the applicant forms part reoffending.
48 However, it is evident that the Tribunal's conclusion that there was a "low but real" risk of the applicant reoffending if permitted to remain in Australia was not based only on its use of the statistical evidence. Nor was it based only on the Tribunal's misunderstanding of Ms Ferrari's evidence concerning the effect of the previous studies. Independently of those matters, the Tribunal had regard to the fact that the applicant's offending between October 2008 and January 2013 was not his "first contact with the criminal justice system for dishonest conduct", that there were no firm plans for ongoing treatment of the applicant despite Ms Ferrari's diagnosis that he had developed clinical symptoms of "Major Depressive Disorder", and that some of the risk factors said to account for his previous offending would continue to be present (including the applicant continuing to be under "continuing financial constraint").
49 In these circumstances, I do not consider that it should be held that the Tribunal did fail to consider, as required by cl 13.1.2(1)(b) of Direction No 79, the likelihood of the applicant engaging in further criminal or other serious conduct.
50 The Tribunal's errors in the assessment of Ms Ferrari's evidence were not jurisdictional in the sense discussed in Hossain v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2018] HCA 34; (2018) 264 CLR 123 at [24]. In particular, the Tribunal's errors cannot be characterised as so fundamental as to constitute a failure to comply with a statutory condition for the exercise of power and therefore having the consequence that its decision was "no decision at all": ibid. They are not dissimilar in effect to the errors considered in Singh v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2019] FCA 428 at [17] and in BJB17 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2020] FCA 1683 at [80] as being errors of fact within jurisdiction.
51 In any event, the Tribunal's errors did not result in it assessing the risk of the offending at a higher level than Ms Ferrari had opined. She had described the risk of the applicant reoffending as "low" and the Tribunal accepted that assessment, albeit adding that the risk was "real".
52 For these reasons, I am not satisfied that Ground 2 has been made out. In these circumstances, it is not necessary to address the applicant's submissions as to materiality.