Ground 2 - denial of procedural fairness
33 Under this ground Ms Creamer alleges that the Minister failed to accord her procedural fairness by failing to notify her, prior to refusing to revoke the decision cancelling her visa, that the cost associated with her incarceration would be taken into account.
34 Ms Creamer's submissions to the Minister included material relating to her contribution to the community, including her work while incarcerated (predominantly laundry services for other prisoners and for members of the Australian Defence Forces). She accepted that she could anticipate the Minister would take these matters into account as part of the consideration of matters in Direction 65 going to the strength, duration and nature of her ties to the Australian community.
35 However, Ms Creamer contended that nothing in Part C of Direction 65 or the other material that was provided alerted her to the possibility that the Minister would take into account the cost of her incarceration when assessing the strength, nature and duration of her ties to the Australian community. She argued that, once the Minister had decided to assess the cost of her incarceration, and to use that matter adversely to her by determining that it outweighed her contribution to the community, the Minister was obliged to expose that information to her and give her the opportunity to comment on it.
36 In Ms Creamer's contention, this consideration should have been expressly identified because it was a factor which was critical to the Minister's decision and it was not apparent from the nature of the decision to be made that the Minister would have regard to it. She submitted that this is not a case in which it could be said that the issue was not of importance to the ultimate decision. She contended that Minister was required to advise her of the adverse conclusion which had been reached, and which was not obviously open on the material known to her.
37 Further, she argued that the consideration was not "so blindingly obvious as not to require any comment or submissions" nor was it information that was "purely factual and entirely incontrovertible", such that there could be no answer to it: see Applicants M1015/2003 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs [2004] FCA 1309 (Applicants M1015/2003) at [45] per Weinberg J. Rather, it was information involving a combination of fact and opinion, which was contentious, and in those circumstances denying Ms Creamer the opportunity to comment on the information was procedurally unfair.
38 In Dunn v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2017] FCA 1328 at [23]-[24] I summarised the relevant principles regarding procedural fairness in the following terms:
In making a decision under s 501CA(4) the Minister must afford procedural fairness to the person affected by the decision. The nature and content of an obligation to accord procedural fairness will depend on the circumstances of each case, including the statutory context in which the decision is made: SZBEL v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (2006) 228 CLR 152; [2006] HCA 63 at [26] (Gleeson CJ, Kirby, Hayne, Callinan and Heydon JJ); Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; Ex parte Miah (2001) 206 CLR 57; [2001] HCA 22 at [30]-[31] (Gleeson CJ and Hayne J).
Procedural fairness requires a decision-maker to identify for the person affected any critical issues not apparent from the nature of the decision or the terms of the statutory power. The decision-maker must advise of any adverse conclusion which would not obviously be open on the known material, but is not otherwise required to expose his or her thought processes or provisional views for comment before making the decision: Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZGUR (2011) 241 CLR 594; [2011] HCA 1 at [9] (French CJ and Kiefel J); Durani v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2014) ALR 130; [2014] FCAFC 79 at [57]. The Minister is required to adopt a procedure that is reasonable in the circumstances and to afford the person affected by the decision an opportunity to be heard. Breach of procedural fairness will occur, and jurisdictional error arise, where the procedure adopted so constrains the opportunity of the person to propound his or her case for a favourable exercise of the power as to amount to a "practical injustice": Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v SZSSJ [2016] HCA 29 at [82] (French CJ, Kiefel, Bell, Gageler, Keane, Nettle and Gordon JJ).
39 I do not accept Ms Creamer's submissions and in my view she failed to establish procedural unfairness.
40 First, as I said in relation to Ground 1, Ms Creamer's contention misstates the purport of the Minister's reasons in relation to the strength, nature and duration of her ties with Australia. On a fair reading of the relevant parts, the Minister was concerned with the length of Ms Creamer's incarceration compared to the short period between her arriving in Australia and being imprisoned. The thing which the Minister considered outweighed Ms Creamer's limited period of contribution to the community was her much longer period of incarceration, not the cost of incarceration.
41 Contrary to Ms Creamer's submissions, the Minister's remark about the "considerable cost" of her incarceration was not a critical factor to the decision. It was a throwaway line insignificant to the Minister's ultimate conclusion. In my view procedural fairness did not require the Minister to expose his view about the cost of incarceration to Ms Creamer, and there was no jurisdictional error in failing to do so. As Weinberg J said in Applicants M1015/2003 at [58]:
It is one thing to say that an applicant is not prevented from claiming that he or she was denied procedural fairness merely because no evidence of what might have been said in response to adverse information has been adduced. It is altogether another thing to say that a throwaway line by the Tribunal about a matter that assumed little, if any, significance in the applicant's case, and only the most tenuous relevance in the Tribunal's reasons, gives rise to jurisdictional error.
42 Second, the requirement of procedural fairness is directed to avoiding practical injustice, and I am not persuaded that Ms Creamer suffered any practical injustice: Re Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs; Ex parte Lam (2003) 214 CLR 1; [2003] HCA 6 at [37] per Gleeson CJ.
43 As Weinberg J explained in Applicants M1015/2003 at [54]:
Whether or not there has been a denial of procedural fairness in any given case is largely dependent upon the particular facts of that case. Where the decision-maker has relied upon adverse information, without providing any opportunity to comment upon it, the question whether the decision is vitiated will depend upon a range of factors. These include the importance of the material to the ultimate decision, as well as the nature of that material. Some information is purely factual and entirely incontrovertible. There may simply be no answer to it. Other information may involve a combination of fact and opinion, and may be contentious. In relation to information of that kind, the denial of the opportunity to comment upon it may give rise to procedural unfairness. Moreover, some matters are so blindingly obvious as not to require any comment or submission. In such cases, the fact that there has been no opportunity to comment will be of little or no significance.
(Emphasis added.)
44 At the time the Minister decided not to revoke the visa cancellation decision Ms Creamer had been in prison for almost 8 years. Although she would not have known the precise quantum of the cost of her incarceration, she must have had a general understanding that the costs involved in incarcerating her for such a lengthy period were significant. It was incontrovertible that her incarceration involved considerable expense to the community. In my view the fact that her incarceration involved considerable cost was "blindingly obvious" and a natural and obvious evaluation of material known to both parties: Applicants M1015/2003 at [54]; James v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2017] FCA 410 at [46] per Robertson J.
45 It is important to keep in mind that the delegate's letter of 14 April 2016 informed Ms Creamer that Direction 65 identified the issues relevant to deciding whether to revoke the visa cancellation. It invited Ms Creamer, when making any representations, to address each part of Direction 65 relevant to her circumstances. As I have said, Direction 65 provides that in having regard to the strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia the Minister should give less weight to those ties where the person began offending soon after arriving in Australia, and more weight to the time the person spent contributing positively to the Australian community. One of the general principles set out in Direction 65 is that Australia has a low tolerance of any criminal or other serious conduct by people who have been participating in and contributing to the Australian community for only a short period of time.
46 Ms Creamer made representations in the knowledge that the Minister was likely to be guided by some or all of the considerations referred to in Direction 65: Picard v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] FCA 1430 at [41]-[42] per Tracey J. She was on notice that the Minister was likely to have regard to the length of the period that she had made a positive contribution as compared to the period that she had been incarcerated. She was on notice that the Minister was likely to conclude, in line with Direction 65, that Australia has a low tolerance of criminal conduct by people who have contributed to the Australian community for only a short period. She was in a position to provide the Minister with information relating to the strength, nature and duration of her ties to Australia having regard to her seven-year incarceration compared to the short period in which she had made a positive contribution to the community, and she made appropriate submissions in that regard. Having regard to the insignificance of the Minister's reference to the cost of incarcerating her to his ultimate decision, she suffered no practical injustice.
47 It is appropriate to dismiss the second ground of the application.