Mr Daley's submissions
22 It is convenient at this point to turn to Mr Daley's submissions. The written submissions were very brief and did not address the grounds of appeal. For the most part they dealt with irrelevant matters. Mr Daley had earlier filed an affidavit in which he made more extensive submissions to similar effect. Mr Daley's submissions were as follows (without alteration):
1. I believe that the AAT erred under 103N of the Registrations and Collections Act, as I had provided evidence regarding my anxiety to the tribunal. This was disregarded by the AAT. This is an error of fact.
2. I also believe that the AAT erred under Section 94.1B of the Social Security Act, where they relied on the impairment tables. I believe that this would be a complete breach of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulations.
3. I can only ask me learned friend Mr Stephen Thompson to request the respondent to confirm how they are collecting monies from the appellant's benefit without judicial confirmation of the child support debt raised in New Zealand. The registration by Child Support Australia (CSA) is also invalid due to the lack of judicial confirmation and the altering of the child's date of birth. The lack of judicial confirmation would make it an error of law under Section 378 of the Registration and Collections Act.
4. The interpretation of the Australia and New Zealand agreement by CSA has been inappropriate and the application many Sections of the said agreement are incorrect.
5. The AAT has been provided with all of the evidence and they should provide said evidence to the court for evaluation.
23 The reference to the "Registrations and Collections Act" is a reference to the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 (Cth), which self-evidently deals with issues relating to child support. At the time of the AAT hearing, s 103N was concerned with the procedures at a hearing in the SSAT. It provided, amongst other things, that in reviewing a decision under Pt VIIA of that Act, the SSAT is not bound by legal technicalities, legal forms or rules of evidence. A decision under Pt VIIA of that Act is a decision of the Child Support Registrar on a reconsideration of a decision of the kind listed in the table to s 80 of that Act. It follows that s 103N of the Registration and Collection Act was irrelevant to the hearing before the AAT. The AAT did not err by failing to apply it.
24 Furthermore, the complaints about the Department's collection of monies are well outside the scope of the appeal, as is the conduct of the Child Support Agency.
25 Section 94.1B of the Social Security Act is apparently a reference to s 94(1)(b). The submission that it would be a complete breach of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulations for the Tribunal to rely on s 94(1)(b) of the Social Security Act is plainly wrong. Not only was it not an error to rely on it, the Tribunal would have erred if it did.
26 To the extent that the submissions dealt with irrelevant matters, these submissions and those to the same effect propounded in the affidavit were misconceived. An appeal from the Tribunal on a question of law arising from a dispute about whether a person is eligible to receive a disability support pension is not the occasion to ventilate all one's grievances with government departments and agencies. To the extent that the submissions dealt with potentially relevant matters, however, they were also misconceived, as the following analysis demonstrates.
27 Mr Daley's oral argument focussed on the last of the written submissions. He took me to numerous documents in the amended appeal book which, he submitted, the Tribunal had ignored. Those documents were:
two reports from Dr Allan Rosenberg, an ophthalmic surgeon, dated 4 April 2013 and 6 June 2013 (T9, T11);
the decision of the SSAT dated 14 October 2014 affirming the decision not to grant Mr Daley a disability support pension (T2);
a medical certificate from Mr Daley's GP, Dr Choueifati, dated 1 April 2014 for the period 1 April to 1 July 2014 in which, under the heading "diagnosis", was recorded "blind in left eye" and "anxiety disorder"; both conditions were described as "permanent"; symptoms in the left eye was said to have "stabilised" but the prognosis with respect to the anxiety condition was said to be "uncertain" (T13);
a medical report from Dr Choueifati dated 3 July 2014 relating to Mr Daley's various conditions (T19);
a Job Capacity Assessment Report by a registered psychologist to whom Mr Daley had been referred by Centrelink dated 30 May 2014 in which the conditions were described by type as "permanent" (T15);
a computer printout (described in the index to Pt B of the appeal book as Centrelink letter to Mr Daley) advising that a decision had been made that he was not eligible for a disability support pension because he had been assessed as not having an impairment rating of 20 points or more and notifying him of his right to seek review of the decision (T18);
a letter to Mr Daley dated 28 August 2014 from the Authorised Review Officer ("ARO") advising him that his application to review the decision to reject his claim for a disability support pension was unsuccessful, together with the ARO's reasons (T22);
notes made by the ARO (T23);
other medical evidence, including a report of an MRI by a neurosurgeon, Dr Mark Davies, dated 28 March 2013 (T24); and
two letters from Mr Tsomis, the clinical psychologist who first saw Mr Daley after the claim period had expired, dated respectively 27 November 2014 (T25) and 30 March 2015 (Ex A1).
28 In the course of argument Mr Daley claimed that Dr Choueifati had put a percentage figure on his loss of sight. At the same time he volunteered that the evidence to support his claim was not in the appeal book. Mr Daley also complained that the legislation required the application of the Impairment Tables. It was his opinion that whether or not a condition was "permanent" should not depend upon the conditions set out in the Impairment Tables.
29 The mere fact that documents in evidence are not mentioned in the decision does not mean that the Tribunal did not have regard to them. I am not persuaded that the Tribunal failed to have regard to these documents. In some cases, such as the reports of Dr Choueifati, Dr Rosenberg and Mr Tsomis, the Tribunal expressly referred to them in its reasons: see [28]-[29] (Dr Choueifati), [31]-[34] (Mr Tsomis); and [44] (Dr Rosenberg).
30 In any case it was no part of the notice of appeal that the Tribunal erred in law by failing to take into account relevant evidence. Moreover, unless the Tribunal was bound (expressly or by implication) to have regard to the evidence Mr Daley claimed the Tribunal overlooked, there would be no error of law: Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd (1986) 162 CLR 24 at 39.
31 The decision of the SSAT was irrelevant. The appeal to the AAT was in the nature of a hearing de novo. The AAT has all the powers and discretions conferred by the Social Security legislation on the original decision-maker: AAT Act, s 43(1).
32 To the extent that the documents were relevant to the issues before the Tribunal, they did not assist Mr Daley. Mr Daley referred to the certificate from Dr Choueifati and the Job Capacity Assessment Report, pointing to the word "permanent" appearing beside his ailments. But Dr Choueifati did not address the criteria for permanence in the Impairment Tables and the Job Capacity Assessment Report, which did, stated with respect to all conditions apart from the blindness in the left eye, that the conditions were not fully diagnosed, treated or stabilised. Consequently, the author's opinion was that criteria in the Impairment Tables had not been met. When these matters were drawn to Mr Daley's attention, he had no answer, saying that he was only trying to do the best he could.
33 Although the relevance of it to the issues raised by the notice of appeal is obscure, Mr Daley also complained about the percentage impairment allocated to his visual impairment. He argued that the figure of 5 points was wrong and that at between 10 and 20 points were warranted, although he did not explain why. Assuming this complaint is indeed captured by the notice of appeal, which I very much doubt, any error of this kind would be an error of fact, rather than law, and therefore beyond the Court's powers to correct.