logan J:
1 I have had the advantage of reading in draft the reasons for judgement of Flick and Perry JJ. I gratefully adopt the account given by their Honours of the background facts, pertinent extracts from the reasons of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and those of the learned primary judge, the submissions of the parties and the issues in the appeal. I agree that the appeal must be dismissed with costs.
2 It is a mistake critically to read the reasons of an administrator or administrative tribunal with an eye for error: Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259 at 282 (Wu Shan Liang).
3 It is also a mistake uncritically to assimilate decision making by officers of the Executive with judicial decision making: Wu Shan Liang at 271-272. Decision making by the former serves such a diversity of purposes and the occasion for its exercise may arise in such an almost infinite variety of circumstances, in peace or war, within Australia or abroad, that no general assimilation is possible. That said, there can be circumstances where, in its application and operation in the circumstances of a particular case, the content of an obligation on the part of an administrative decision-maker such as the Tribunal to afford procedural fairness can be informed by analogy with a similar obligation attending the exercise of judicial power.
4 Re Pochi v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1979) 2 ALD 33 was a case which entailed the review of a deportation decision in respect of a non-Australian citizen resident who had been convicted of criminal offences. For the purpose of reviewing the Minister's deportation decision, the Tribunal was constituted by its then President, Brennan J, then a judge of this Court. In giving the Tribunal's reasons, Brennan J observed (at 40), "at the end of the day the decision-maker must be persuaded that deportation is in the best interests of Australia, and where the consequences of deportation are grave, he will not be lightly persuaded: see Briginshaw v Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR 336 at 362 (Briginshaw)". In the circumstances of the particular case, Brennan J chose not to act upon material which, his Honour acknowledged, raised a suspicion but did not prove that Mr Pochi had been engaged in the commercial trafficking of marijuana. In the result, he recommended (for that was the limit of the review jurisdiction consigned to the Tribunal under the governing legislation) to the Minister that the deportation order be set aside.
5 The Minister appealed against the Tribunal's decision under s 44 of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth) (AAT Act): Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Pochi (1980) 44 FLR 41 (Pochi). In that appeal, Deane J (with whom Evatt J agreed) stated (at 62):
In my view, the Tribunal was bound, as a matter of law, to act on the basis that any conduct alleged against Mr Pochi which was relied upon as a basis for sustaining the deportation order should be established, on the balance of probability, to its satisfaction by some rationally probative evidence and not merely raised before it as a matter of suspicion or speculation or left, on the material before it, in the situation where the Tribunal considered that, while the conduct may have occurred, it was unable to conclude that it was more likely than not that it had. It seems to me that this conclusion follows, as a matter of law, from the authorities referred to and the reasoning advanced by the Tribunal to establish the proposition as a general principle to be observed by it as a matter of administrative practice.
[Emphasis added]
One of the authorities referred to by Brennan J and hence treated by Deane J as relevant to the conclusion he (Deane J) reached was Briginshaw. The words which I have emphasised in the passage quoted from the judgement of Deane J underscore this. As the quote from the reasons of Brennan J reveals, his Honour's use of that case was by analogy and so as to emphasise why suspicion was an insufficient foundation for a conclusion that "the banishing of the husband and father" was in the interests of Australia: (1979) 2 ALD at 58. Brennan J linked this proposition to "notions of fairness" (ibid).
6 The Minister sought and was initially granted special leave to appeal to the High Court against the Full Court's dismissal of his s 44 appeal in Pochi. The High Court later revoked special leave for a number of reasons, one of which related to the ramifications of the Tribunal's decision as but a recommendation, another of which touched on a constitutional issue which had emerged late and without earlier consideration by the Full Court: Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Pochi (1981) 149 CLR 139.
7 In light of the manner in which the High Court came to dispose of the case, it cannot be said that the views expressed in Pochi by Deane J (Evatt J agreeing) in the passage quoted have the approval of that court. Nonetheless, those views have never been disapproved. To the contrary, in Aporo v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (2009) 113 ALD 46 at [48] the Full Court proceeded on the basis that they remained correct.
8 Pochi then is not just a case which illustrates the proposition that the Tribunal's conclusions must be based on logically probative material. It is also one in which it was held that, where that conclusion may have grave consequences for a party to the review or even third parties, it ought not lightly to be reached and this factor intrudes on what the Tribunal should regard as probative in the making of a reasonable decision.
9 In dismissing the appeal, the learned primary judge observed, Sullivan v Civil Aviation Safety Authority (2013) 67 AAR 77 at [38]:
The problem with the submissions for Mr Sullivan is that they seek to elevate what is a mere tool for administrative decision-making into a principle which must not only be applied but also must be identified on the face of the Tribunal's reasons as having been applied. I do not accept either proposition.
…
It is Mr Sullivan's case that the Tribunal's decision may be impugned not because the conclusion was not reasonably open and not because material factual findings were not based on some logically probative material but as a result of the Tribunal not having reasoned by reference to Briginshaw. Given the statutory context in which the Tribunal operates there is no justification for confining the possible reasoning processes of the Tribunal in this way.
10 Having regard to the passage which I have quoted from the judgement of Deane J in Pochi, I respectfully disagree with her Honour's view that there is no possible justification for the nature and consequences of an administrative decision and no concomitant need not lightly to reach particular conclusions intruding into the Tribunal's reasoning process. "Bound as a matter of law", as Deane J put it in Pochi puts the subject rather higher, with respect, than a "mere tool".
11 That there is some material to warrant a particular conclusion may not always be a complete answer. Where the consequences of that conclusion are so grave and either the quality of that material so slender or the body of contradictory material so compelling that, unless it appears expressly or by necessary inference that the Tribunal has adverted to a need not lightly to reach the conclusion, that conclusion may be unreasonable in the sense explained by Lord Diplock in Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council [1977] AC 1014 at 1064 (Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council), "To fall within this expression it must be conduct which no sensible authority acting with due appreciation of its responsibilities would have decided to adopt" (emphasis added). Overt recognition by an administrative tribunal of a need not lightly to make findings of grave consequence evidences "acting with due appreciation of its responsibilities". To similar effect but without the express reference to an appreciation of responsibilities is his Lordship's later reference in Bromley London Borough City Council v Greater London Council [1983] 1 AC 768 at 821 to "decisions that, looked at objectively, are so devoid of any plausible justification that no reasonable body of persons could have reached them".
12 That the Tribunal is, by s 33(1)(b) of the AAT Act, exhorted to proceed "with as little formality and technicality, and with as much expedition, as the requirements of this Act and of every other relevant enactment and a proper consideration of the matters before the Tribunal permit" and, by s 33(1)(c) of that Act, "not bound by the rules of evidence but may inform itself on any matter in such manner as it thinks appropriate" may not be a panacea for inadvertence to the nature of the decision under review or the consequences of making a particular finding.
13 The Migration Review Tribunal operates under a materially similar statutory charter to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in conducting merits review. That did not prevent French CJ from observing, in respect of the Migration Review Tribunal, in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v Li (2013) 249 CLR 332 at [28] (Li) that, while there was generally an area of decisional freedom consigned to the exercise of a discretion, within which area reasonable minds might reasonably differ as to that exercise, "the freedom thus left by the statute cannot be construed as attracting a legislative sanction to be arbitrary or capricious or to abandon common sense". In that same case, Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ (at [71]) cited with approval the explanation, quoted above, of unreasonableness given by Lord Diplock in Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and stated that this reflected, "the requirement of the law that a decision-maker understand his or her statutory powers and obligations". Later, at [72], their Honours observed:
Whether a decision-maker be regarded, by reference to the scope and purpose of the statute, as having committed a particular error in reasoning, given disproportionate weight to some factor or reasoned illogically or irrationally, the final conclusion will in each case be that the decision-maker has been unreasonable in a legal sense.
14 The remaining judge in Li, Gageler J put matters this way but not, with respect, to different effect when he stated (at [90]):
Implication of reasonableness as a condition of the exercise of a discretionary power conferred by statute is no different from implication of reasonableness as a condition of an opinion or state of satisfaction required by statute as a prerequisite to an exercise of a statutory power or performance of a statutory duty. Each is a manifestation of the general and deeply rooted common law principle of construction that such decision-making authority as is conferred by statute must be exercised according to law and to reason within limits set by the subject matter, scope and purposes of the statute.
[Footnote references omitted]
15 Having regard to Li, a requirement in a case where particular conclusions may be attended with grave consequences to advert to a need not lightly to reach such conclusions is but a corollary of the need for the decision-maker to act reasonably. Just such an association is evident in the passage from the judgement of Deane J in Pochi quoted above. It is in the implication of reasonableness in administrative decision-making, not in an uncritical assimilation of judicial and administrative decision-making, that the source of the requirement is to be found.
16 In resolving justiciable controversies by a final judgement, a court is constrained to act on admissible evidence. An administrative decision-maker is not so constrained, as s 33(1)(c) of the AAT Act makes plain in respect of the Tribunal. However, an administrative decision-maker must act reasonably. As Pochi illustrates, there are particular kinds of administrative decisions which are attended with such grave consequences that to act on "inexact proofs, indefinite testimony or indirect references" (to borrow from Briginshaw at 362) may not be reasonable. What was said in Briginshaw is applicable only by analogy for the reminder it offers about what may be necessary in particular kinds of case to induce reasonable satisfaction in the mind of a decision-maker. It is not necessary for a decision-maker overtly to refer to Briginshaw, only that it be apparent from the reasons given that the decision-maker is aware of that conclusions carrying grave consequences ought not lightly to be made.
17 That such an awareness was apparent in a decision-maker's reasons, would not, in itself, be sufficient to make the decision a reasonable one. It would also have to be apparent from the reasons that this understanding had permeated the reaching of any such conclusion. To borrow from the language employed by Lord Diplock in Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, it must be apparent from those reasons not only that the decision-maker has appreciated his responsibilities but also that the conclusion reached is sensible, i.e. neither illogical nor irrational. The expectation is that the former will be conducive of the latter.
18 Further and in any event, what was said in Pochi is the considered view of a majority of the Full Court and ought not to be departed from by a later Full Court unless persuaded that it was clearly in error. I am not, for the reasons given above, so persuaded.
19 It follows that, insofar as Mr Sullivan's challenge to the dismissal of his s 44 appeal depends upon acceptance of a principle that there are types of decision where it is incumbent upon the Tribunal in its reasons to make apparent an appreciation of the need not lightly to reach conclusions carrying grave consequences, I accept that there is such a principle.
20 The next premise of Mr Sullivan's submission was that the nature of the decision under review or at least the findings which the Tribunal made with respect to Mr Sullivan's evidence were such that the Tribunal was required to observe this principle and that the reasons of the learned Deputy President constituting the Tribunal did not disclose such an appreciation.
21 The decision to cancel Mr Sullivan's aviation licence was made under reg 269 of the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 (Cth) (CAR) made pursuant to the Civil Aviation Act 1988 (Cth) (CAA). That regulation materially provides that the respondent Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) may cancel a licence, certificate or authority if satisfied that the holder:
(a) has contravened, a provision of the Act or these regulations, including these Regulations as in force by virtue of a law of a State;
...
(c) has failed in his or her duty with respect to any matter affecting the safe navigation or operation of an aircraft;
(d) is not a fit and proper person to have the responsibilities and exercise and perform the functions and duties of a holder of such an authorisation.
22 The nature of the administrative review jurisdiction exercised by the Tribunal was such that it fell to the Tribunal, sitting in place of CASA, to decide whether, on the basis of the material before it, it was satisfied that Mr Sullivan's Commercial Pilot (Helicopter) Licence should be cancelled.
23 The learned primary judge found (at [38]) that, "Given the statutory context in which the Tribunal operates there is no justification for confining the possible reasoning processes of the Tribunal [by requiring reference to Briginshaw]". Her Honour considered (at [39]) that this was consistent with the conclusions in Civil Aviation Safety Authority v Boatman [2006] FCA 460 at [62]" (Boatman). In Boatman, Madgwick J had stated (at [62]):
62 As to the ease with which the Court should be satisfied of matters adverse to them, the respondents submitted that, given the seriousness of the consequences for their reputation and livelihood of adverse findings, the evidentiary principles in Briginshaw at 361-3 are applicable. I disagree. The proceedings are primarily protective of the public, notwithstanding that fairness to impugned authorisation holders is an important part of the process. Further, any adverse finding that the Court might make is provisional only: it would merely assert that there are reasonable grounds for believing that some conduct had been in contravention of the statutory requirement. It would be inconsistent with the statutory commands to the Court to consider 'reasonable grounds to believe' and to give safety the primary emphasis to require that the Court only act on proofs which are not 'inexact', testimony which is not 'indefinite' and inferences which are not 'indirect' (see Briginshaw at 362).
24 Boatman did not arise against the background of a decision to cancel a licence pursuant to reg 269 of the CAR. Rather, the Court was dealing with an application by CASA, pursuant to s 30DE of the CAA, for orders prohibiting the respondent pilots from doing anything that would otherwise be authorised under their respective pilot licences for a period of 25 days.
25 Mr Sullivan submitted that the jurisdiction exercised by the Tribunal was not protective, as her Honour evidently thought by her reference to Boatman, but rather disciplinary. Boatman, he submitted, was distinguishable because the jurisdiction was protective and entailed only the making of preliminary findings. His submission was that the nature of the jurisdiction exercised by the Tribunal was such that the Tribunal in its reasons was obliged to make apparent an appreciation of the need not lightly to reach conclusions carrying grave consequences.
26 Apart from submitting that there was no such obligation at all in administrative decision-making, CASA submitted that, even if there were, neither the nature of the review jurisdiction being exercised nor the findings which the Tribunal made entailed any such obligation. CASA further submitted that the effect of s 9A of the CAA was such that it excluded any such obligation. That section provides:
Performance of functions
(1) In exercising its powers and performing its functions, CASA must regard the safety of air navigation as the most important consideration.
(2) Subject to subsection (1), CASA must exercise its powers and perform its functions in a manner that ensures that, as far as is practicable, the environment is protected from:
(a) the effects of the operation and use of aircraft; and
(b) the effects associated with the operation and use of aircraft.
CASA also submitted, further or alternatively, that, in any event, the Tribunal's reasons, read as a whole, disclosed that the learned Deputy President was well aware of any such obligation.
27 It is true that there are many statements to be found in cases which characterise the purpose of the cancellation or suspension of an authority to practise a learned profession or undertake a particular occupation providing a service to the public as protective rather than punitive. Ziems v The Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (1957) 97 CLR 279 at 286, 289, 300 is a notable example of such a characterisation, often cited in later such cases. More recently, a distinction between protective and punitive proceedings has been described as "elusive": Rich v Australian Securities and Investments Commission (2004) 220 CLR 129 at [32] (Rich v ASIC). In Rich v ASIC, which was a disqualification proceeding, the supposed distinction was not regarded as determinative of whether Mr Rich was entitled to rely upon the privilege against exposure to penalties and forfeitures so as to resist discovery. It was held that he was entitled to rely on this privilege.
28 In this case, too, to seek to draw such a distinction may be apt to distract from the question as to whether the issues at large in the proceeding before the Tribunal were such that, in deciding whether it was satisfied as to the occurrence of particular events or whether Mr Sullivan was a fit and proper person, the Tribunal ought to have approached fact finding by reference to the gravity and consequences of particular conclusions. That position is not altered by the presence of s 9A in the CAA. A requirement to regard the safety of air navigation as the most important consideration is, for example, not a licence lightly to find that someone such as Mr Sullivan is dishonest.
29 Boatman is distinguishable from the present type of case. The jurisdiction of the Court under s 30DE of the CAA which CASA invoked in Boatman was reactive to a process triggered a suspension decision by CASA under s 30DC on the basis that it had reason to believe that the holder of a civil aviation authorisation had engaged in, was engaging in, or was likely to engage in, conduct that constituted, contributed to or resulted in a serious and imminent risk to air safety. In order to make a prohibition order under s 30DE, the Court had to be satisfied that there was "reason to believe" that the holder of the authorisation had engaged in such conduct: s 30DE(2) of the CAA. Neither an initial suspension decision under s 30DC nor any order under s 30DE entails reaching any concluded view about the holder of the authorisation. The very nature of the condition precedent to the making of either a suspension decision under s 30DC or a prohibition order under s 30DE is inconsistent with a need to advert to Briginshaw. In contrast, the exercise or the review of the exercise of the power under reg 269 of the CAR to suspend or cancel does entail the reaching of concluded views in respect of one or more of the criteria mentioned in that regulation. Thus, while I agree with the view expressed by Madgwick J in Boatman at [62] as to the inapplicability of Briginshaw, unlike the primary judge, I do not regard that view as of any assistance in relation to whether the Tribunal was required to advert to a like principle in reviewing the reg 269 decision of CASA.
30 The expression "fit and proper person" found in reg 269 of the CAR has a long history of use as a touchstone in the making of decisions with respect to the cancellation or suspension of an ability to practise a learned profession or pursue a particular occupation. As the learned Deputy President correctly recognised (at [72], fn 38) in the present case, the root Australian authority meaning of that expression is Hughes and Vale Pty Ltd v New South Wales (No 2) (1955) 93 CLR 127 where, at, 156-157, Dixon CJ, McTiernan and Webb JJ said of it:
The expression "fit and proper person" is of course familiar enough as traditional words when used with reference to offices and perhaps vocations. But their very purpose is to give the widest scope for judgment and indeed for rejection. "Fit" (or "idoneus") with respect to an office is said to involve three things, honesty knowledge and ability: "honesty to execute it truly, without malice affection or partiality; knowledge to know what he ought duly to do; and ability as well in estate as in body, that he may intend and execute his office, when need is, diligently, and not for impotency or poverty neglect it" - Coke. When the question was whether a man was a fit and proper person to hold a licence for the sale of liquor it was considered that it ought not to be confined to an inquiry into his character and that it would be unwise to attempt any definition of the matters which may legitimately be inquired into; each case must depend upon its own circumstances: R v Hyde Justices [1912] 1 KB 645, 664.
31 The expression "fit and proper" thus can and in this case did entail the reaching of a conclusion about a person's honesty. That being so, the case was one entailing a potentially grave consequence for Mr Sullivan. It was therefore of the kind where the Tribunal ought not to make such a finding lightly and where the reasons should reflect an understanding of this.
32 Mr Sullivan's submissions drew particular attention to two paragraphs of the Tribunal's reasons, paragraph 40 in which the Tribunal observed of Exhibit 3, "I find myself well short of being satisfied that it is what Mr Sullivan claims it to be." and paragraph 75 in which the Tribunal made an affirmative finding of dishonesty in respect of a post-accident report which Mr Sullivan furnished to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
33 There is a difference between not being satisfied that a person's version of events is accurate and a finding that the version of events given by that person is deliberately false. In Smith v New South Wales Bar Association (1992) 176 CLR 256 at 268, Brennan, Dawson, Toohey and Gaudron JJ observed:
It is necessary to say something as to the finding that the appellant lied in the Court of Appeal. There is a difference between the rejection of a person's evidence and a finding that he or she deliberately lied. In some cases, a rejection of evidence may lead to a finding that that person lied on another occasion. Thus, in the present case, a rejection of the appellant's evidence in the Court of Appeal led to a finding that he lied in the Penrith Local Court on the morning of 11 November 1986. On other occasions, other evidence may be of such a nature or of such weight that, in combination with the rejection of some particular evidence, it will justify a finding that that evidence was fabricated. But, as a matter of logic and common sense, something more than mere rejection of a person's evidence is necessary before there can be a positive finding that he or she deliberately lied in the giving of that evidence. It is particularly important in disciplinary cases, where the honesty and candour of legal practitioners assume special significance, that the distinction between the rejection of a person's evidence and a positive finding that he or she deliberately lied be observed. The mere rejection of evidence can neither justify a consequence over and above that which properly attaches to the matter charged, nor deprive the person of the benefit of personal considerations which might otherwise be taken into account.
34 In O'Reilly v Law Society of New South Wales (1988) 24 NSWLR 204 at 230, Clarke JA (Mahoney JA agreeing) referred to this same difference in this way:
In particular there is a need to distinguish carefully between cases in which the evidence of a solicitor is not accepted and those in which there is an affirmative finding that he has deliberately lied or sought to mislead the tribunal. It goes without saying that a tribunal needs to be satisfied to that degree of persuasion which is necessary to satisfy the Briginshaw test before it can properly make a finding that a solicitor has lied or deliberately deceived the tribunal.
His Honour's observations are especially apt for present purposes for their reference to Briginshaw.
35 Each of the paragraphs in the Tribunal's reasons to which Mr Sullivan drew attention must not only just be read in context but also keeping firmly in mind what was said in Wu Shan Liang about the scrutiny of an administrator's reasons.
36 When this is done, the result in my view is that, in recording in paragraph 40 an absence of satisfaction as to Mr Sullivan's account with respect to Exhibit 3, the learned Deputy President was deliberately refraining from making any positive finding of dishonesty with respect to this account. When he thought that a finding of dishonesty was warranted, the Deputy President has, in paragraph 75 and on a different subject, expressly made such a finding.
37 Mr Sullivan was closely cross-examined about Exhibit 3 and the steps which he took in relation to the calculation of take-off weight for the helicopter. It was never part of that cross-examination that Exhibit 3 was a fabrication. To make such a finding in the absence of any confronting of Mr Sullivan with an allegation of fabrication and the affording to him of an opportunity to respond would not just have entailed confronting a need not lightly to make such a finding but, more fundamentally, a need to observe procedural fairness. There has never been a complaint as to an absence of the latter in relation to the Tribunal's expressed lack of satisfaction with Mr Sullivan's account as to Exhibit 3.
38 There was then no need for the Tribunal to confront a need not lightly to be persuaded before making a finding of dishonesty in relation to Mr Sullivan's account concerning Exhibit 3 because the Tribunal did not, at paragraph 40, make any such finding. Further and, in any event, even if paragraph 40 is to be characterised as Mr Sullivan would have it, the Tribunal, as will be seen, was well aware of a need not lightly to make a finding of that character.
39 As to the finding with respect to the false report to the ATSB, it is to be remembered that Mr Sullivan had already pleaded guilty to a charge that, contrary to s 137.1 of the Criminal Code 1995 (Cth), he had given a report to the ATSB knowing that the information in the report was false and misleading. Mr Sullivan's case before the Tribunal did not entail an invitation to the Tribunal to revisit his confession of guilt. Rather, that confession was a given but the Tribunal was invited to look at other events on the day of the accident and to Mr Sullivan's overall history as an aviator and the opinions of others concerning his general character and character and skill as an aviator so as not to be satisfied that his licence should be cancelled. There was no need for the Tribunal to confront a need not lightly to make a finding of dishonesty with respect to the report to the ATSB. Mr Sullivan's dishonesty in this report was an uncontested given in the proceedings.
40 Two further pejorative findings were made in paragraph 75. One was that Mr Sullivan had given the false report so as to avoid an investigation by CASA and related examination of his conduct on the day of the accident. The other was that he had made a related dishonest report to an insurer concerning the helicopter's take-off weight. Mr Sullivan submitted that in making these, the Deputy President had not, as he should have, directed himself to the need not lightly to make such findings and, by analogy, to what was said in this regard in Briginshaw.
41 This submission either ignores or fails to read fairly and in context paragraph 47 of the Tribunal's reasons:
47. Mr Sullivan's submissions referred to a passage in the decision of Deputy President Jarvis in Re Johanson & Civil Aviation Safety Authority and to the familiar passage from the judgment of Dixon J in Briginshaw v Briginshaw that in matters such as the present, 'reasonable satisfaction' should not be produced by inexact proofs, indefinite testimony, or indirect inferences. Conscious of that warning, I see no reason to doubt the general accuracy of Mr Smale's evidence of matters of observable fact and his recollection of the general thrust of conversations. I was impressed by his recollection of events and I propose to generally accept his evidence. I expressly reject the suggestion that his evidence was the product of prompting by Mr Saffery.
[footnote references omitted]
42 Present in this paragraph is express reference not just to Briginshaw and but also to an earlier aviation licencing case in the Tribunal where what was said in that case had been regarded as applicable to the engendering of reasonable satisfaction under reg 269 of the CAR. The learned Deputy President does more than here record his acceptance ("conscious of that warning") of a submission made to him on behalf of Mr Sullivan that reasonable satisfaction is not to be found in "inexact proofs, indefinite testimony, or indirect inferences". He also records his familiarity with the passage concerned in Briginshaw.
43 It is true that paragraph 39 appears in part of the Tribunal's reasons directed to whether the evidence of another witness, Mr Smale, ought generally to be accepted but, again, as Wu Shan Liang requires, read fairly and in context, what is entailed in the particular reason for generally accepting Mr Smale's evidence is a general recognition as to what is entailed in reaching reasonable satisfaction in a matter of this kind. It would be a quite artificial reading of the Tribunal's reasons to read paragraph 39 otherwise.
44 Thus, though there was a requirement in the circumstances of the case before the Tribunal to advert to a need not lightly to be reasonably satisfied that a condition for cancellation specified in reg 269 of the CAR was met, the Tribunal adverted to this requirement. The findings which the Tribunal came to make in paragraph 75 were each reasonably open on the material before the Tribunal.
45 As originally formulated, ground 7 of the notice of appeal was in these terms:
That the court below erred in law by failing to hold that the rule in Browne v Dunn had not been complied with in relation to Ms Parsissons' evidence.
In the course of the appeal and after the attention of Mr Sullivan's counsel was drawn to the High Court's decision in Re Ruddock; Ex parte Applicant S154/2002 (2003) 201 ALR 437 (S154), this ground was amended so as to read:
That the court below erred in law by failing to a relevant matter in relation to the acceptance of the evidence of Ms Anna Parsissons, namely that it was not put to Ms Parsissons that her recollection was faulty in relation to material matters.
46 The so-called "rule in Browne v Dunn", derived from observations (quoted by Flick and Perry JJ) made by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Herschell, in Browne v Dunn (1894) 6 R 67 at 70-71, was held in S154 to be inapplicable to proceedings in the Refugee Review Tribunal. There is no relevant distinction to be drawn between that tribunal and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal so far as the rejection of the direct applicability of that rule is concerned.
47 The reference in the amended ground of appeal to "relevant matter" cannot be to a "relevant consideration" in the sense authoritatively described by Mason J in Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd (1986) 162 CLR 24 at 39-40. There was nothing in the CAR or in the CAA which expressly or by necessary implication made what is described in the amended ground a relevant consideration. What did follow from the nature of the review which the Tribunal conducted was that it was bound to afford Mr Sullivan procedural fairness. Even in its amended form, the ground does not expressly assert such a denial but, even reading it benignly and as if it did, there is no substance in this basis of challenge.
48 Since S154, the High Court has returned to the nature of administrative review proceedings in Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZIAI (2009) 83 ALJR 1123 and Minister for Immigration and Citizenship v SZGUR (2011) 241 CLR 594. In light of these cases, it must now be held that, while, in form, a tribunal such as the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is strictly inquisitorial, the "core function" of such a tribunal is one of review. In undertaking such a review and where there are interested parties to the review with conflicting positions, there can be circumstances where it would be procedurally unfair for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to base its decision on the acceptance of a particular witness called by one party without affording another party due notice of a differing version. To recognise this is not to subvert S154 by assimilating the differing nature of judicial and administrative review proceedings. It is just that the inherently flexible content of a procedural fairness obligation can, where that obligation attends the exercise of administrative power, entail a requirement which resembles that which would flow in a judicial proceeding from observance of the rule in Browne v Dunn.
49 In some cases, and the present was not one, procedural fairness may dictate that the nature of a differing version be put in the course of the oral testimony of a witness called by one party. So far as the evidence of Ms Anna Parsissons was concerned and insofar as there were any differences between her evidence and that of those on whom CASA relied, there was no denial of procedural fairness by the Tribunal to Mr Sullivan. That is because Ms Parsissons' statement, which became part of the evidence before the Tribunal, was prepared after Mr Sullivan had the benefit of being provided with the statements of the witnesses upon whose evidence CASA proposed to rely. All of this occurred well before the hearing undertaken by the Tribunal and in accordance with the Tribunal's pre-hearing requirements. He thereby had notice of the nature and content of the factual bases upon which CASA would submit that the Tribunal ought on review to be satisfied that his licence ought to be cancelled. Ms Parsissons' statement was prepared with the benefit of this notice.
50 The present, therefore, is a case like VN Railway Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (2013) 211 FCR 188 (VN Railway). In that case, too, there was a complaint that the Tribunal had failed to afford procedural fairness by non-compliance with the "rule in Browne v Dunn". That complaint was rejected by Tracey J. His Honour explained, by reference to a leading modern exposition of that rule by Hunt J in Allied Pastoral Holdings Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Taxation [1983] 1 NSWLR 1 at 16, 26, that at its heart lay the affording of fairness by due notice. His Honour observed, at [50]:
The requirements of the rule may be satisfied prior to a hearing if one party provides to the other notice of the case which it proposes to make in reliance on documents to which the other party has access and of the inferences proposed to be drawn from them: see White Industries (Qld) Pty Ltd v Flower & Hart (a firm) (1998) 156 ALR 169 at 220 (Goldberg J).
51 It is plain from his Honour's later reference (at [51]) to an obligation flowing from a statement made by Brennan J in Kioa v West (1985) 159 CLR 550 at 629 with respect to a need to furnish to a person likely to be affected by an administrative decision information which was "credible, relevant and significant to the decision" that discussion by Tracey J of the "rule in Browne v Dunn" issue was premised upon the need to give due notice flowing from a procedural fairness obligation which can attend the making of an administrative decision, not an uncritical assimilation of administrative and judicial and administrative proceedings. It is just that considerations of fairness can lead to like requirements in relation to the giving of due notice. So understood, I respectfully agree with the analysis in VN Railway of this like issue.
52 Even as recast, there is no substance in the circumstances in ground 7.
53 For these reasons, I agree that the appeal must be dismissed, with costs.
I certify that the preceding fifty-three (53) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Logan.