Rate the NCAT
In some instances, after receiving an Agency's Decision or Determination of freedom of information request, or on receipt of a secondary review by the IPC, an access applicant may still not be satisfied with the outcome of a request for information.
There may be a number of reasons for this, which are likely to be discussed as the site evolves.
The final step of the GIPA review process is to lodge an Application for Administrative Review with the NSW Civil & Administrative Tribunal, NCAT. This is actually a judicial review.
It is nothing new to hear a presiding Tribunal Member comment that they are "standing in the shoes of the decision-maker," which indicates the Tribunal commences any task of adjudication from a position of bias.
Those new to the NCAT generally expect it to adopt a neutral position between the parties to the proceedings, with each taking their opposing or adversarial roles at the bar table. However the disclosure that the NCAT in fact "stands in the shoes of the decision maker", that is the agency, actually gives the game away and is indicative of what kind of outcome members of the public can expect.
In this very formal forum, access applicants are often self-represented, and may even find they are facing a high-powered and sometimes high-profile opposing legal team funded by the Agency, or "some of the finest legal minds in the State" according to the NSW Crown Solicitor's Office (CSO) if that is the legal entity chosen by the Agency.
Un-represented parties, mostly not legally trained and naively believing in justice, also face large legal teams amounting to manifestly excessive advocacy, where legal costs are racked up for every solicitor involved, ensuring the highest of legal costs should the opportunity be given by NCAT to make an Application to recoup those legal costs.
One such agency to exercise manifestly excessive advocacy is Port Stephens Council, repeatedly engaging Lindsay Taylor Lawyers against un-represented, non-legal Applicants. In several documented cases Council has utilised a team of lawyers with no less than (100) one hundred collective years of legal experience including in-house solicitors, claiming "Council is entitled to engage external legal services" to justify these avoidable exhortant legal costs.
NSW Freedom of Information is yet to find one single self-represented party to NCAT proceedings who has faced off with either the Crown Solicitor's Office or Dept of Communities and Justice, for example, who has attested to a fair fight. This is because the CSO, DoJ and NCAT are closely aligned and enjoy a very close relationship.
The same can be said about the IPC. It also works very closely with the CSO. These entities all fall under the umbrella of the NSW Attorney General.
Any reasonable person would agree the game is totally stacked in favour of NSW Agencies, and this is moreso when an individual is self-represented, made much worse when the NSW Crown Solicitor or Dept of Communities and Justice sits as opposition at the bar table.
How then can the NCAT's publication dated 24th March 2022 maintain any credibility??
Representing Yourself
Most people choose to represent themselves at NCAT.
NCAT encourages you to run your own case without needing a lawyer or other representative.
This provides a low cost, accessible and efficient means of resolving your dispute.
Representing yourself gives you direct control on how your case is presented.
With the right preparation and organisation, you can be your own best advocate.
A significant number of self-represented applicants find their experiences with the NCAT leave them with numerous questions about how the NCAT managed and processed their requests for judicial review, and the degree to which they felt equality was exercised and upheld on both sides by the presiding NCAT Member. These individuals are oblivious to the reality of the situation, where information is shared and the IPC is kept in the loop behind the scenes, picking and choosing which cases she will "exercise her right to appear" in proceedings, but only deciding to appear once she is privvy to all the information contained in the files.................
Some find they are simply out-gunned by the Agency and feel completley disempowered as they attempt to exercise their (so-called) rights to access government information. And worse, others are totally shut down and deprived of legal rights and due process by those in place to ensure the rules are equally applied to all who come to the court.
The experiences can be as varied as the information being requested. Equally, NCAT decisions do not always give a true and accurate representation of Hearing dialogue, and some people have even felt they themselves have been misrepresented and misquoted by Tribunal Members. With options of a formal Appeal or perhaps a review in the NSW Supreme Court, depending on the level of Tribunal Decision, members of the public can often find themselves so unexpectedly and completely overwhelmed by NCAT outcomes and the facing of large highly skilled agency legal teams, they choose to walk away with a view of total injustice.
This section of the site offers the public the opportunity to raise any concerns, particularly how they leave their matter with NCAT, what the impact of NCAT decisions have had, and the opinions and perspectives they formed about the NSW Judicial Review processes from those experiences.
This is the first time the public will have access to a platform that gives them a voice.
All feedback is welcome, whether positive or negative. Profanity will be abbreviated but otherwise not disguised in order to ensure truth of rating. To Rate the NCAT, please complete the form immediately below.
Some find they are simply out-gunned by the Agency and feel completley disempowered as they attempt to exercise their (so-called) rights to access government information. And worse, others are totally shut down and deprived of legal rights and due process by those in place to ensure the rules are equally applied to all who come to the court.
The experiences can be as varied as the information being requested. Equally, NCAT decisions do not always give a true and accurate representation of Hearing dialogue, and some people have even felt they themselves have been misrepresented and misquoted by Tribunal Members. With options of a formal Appeal or perhaps a review in the NSW Supreme Court, depending on the level of Tribunal Decision, members of the public can often find themselves so unexpectedly and completely overwhelmed by NCAT outcomes and the facing of large highly skilled agency legal teams, they choose to walk away with a view of total injustice.
This section of the site offers the public the opportunity to raise any concerns, particularly how they leave their matter with NCAT, what the impact of NCAT decisions have had, and the opinions and perspectives they formed about the NSW Judicial Review processes from those experiences.
This is the first time the public will have access to a platform that gives them a voice.
All feedback is welcome, whether positive or negative. Profanity will be abbreviated but otherwise not disguised in order to ensure truth of rating. To Rate the NCAT, please complete the form immediately below.
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Zebra
Deeply flawed tribunal. The processes are billed as easy and streamlined, but are actually incredibly complicated and bureaucratic. In my view, members of the NCAT demonstrate complete contempt for members of the public and go out of their way to provide procedural advantages to state parties that would never be permitted in a court.
K.D, (Sydney)
I lodged application. The NCAT staff input wrong email address into their system so I was not notified of hearing and the case was closed as a no show by me. I wasnt notified till I politely rang to ask what was happening to my application from 2 months ago.Thank you very little. Pubic servants c*****
Latsos, M
Completely and utterly incompetent and needs to be shut down. Their biggest money maker is the fleecing of homes from the elderly and vulnerable.
the expose
Highly corrupt and grossly incompetent Gov Dept www.theexpose.com.au
Webb, T
The breadth of quality of service and professionalism exhibited by the NCAT could not, in my opinion, be more widely spread.
I have experienced Tribunal Members who act with total integrity and professionalism, who work openly, respecting and listening to un-represented members of the public in continued efforts to uphold the objects of the NCAT Act 2013 and other legislation they are administering.
I have also experienced NCAT Tribunal Members who have shown they are far too easily wooed by agency legal teams, who refuse to listen to those same un-represented members of the public, Members who brush aside legitimate concerns and shut a pleading public down at first instance often resulting in examples of abuse of process and complete disregard for fundamental legal rights, affording unbridled favouritsm to learned colleagues.
Of most concern however is the fact I have also experienced a high-ranking Tribunal Member who acted with such total bias, he succeeded in redefining the term. This Member openly pandered to an agency’s flattering legal team, in fact leading the agency to submit pleasing documentation to the NCAT that would secure a favourable outcome, thereafter presiding over the case and making the harshest of decisions wrapped in personal hurtful comments deliberately designed to humiliate and denigrate a solitary un-represented member of the public. Regardless of whether or not a successful appeal is secured, these words forever achieve the desired level of damage and impact intended by a so-minded Tribunal Member, as they remain permanently accessible to the entire globe.
Tribunal Members are fully aware of the established processes and this one knew full well that I would have to fight to overturn his abominable decision, a decision that asserted I had been untruthful when I had not been.
At the same time however, the same Member was directed to untruths within the agency’s Sworn Affidavit and the Member did nothing, except embrace it wholeheartedly without asking a single question, he gobbled it up.
It is a shame this latter experience has left such a huge scar on me, with the good service and professionalism I had previously been shown by his colleagues paling in comparison.
It is my view that any judicial decision maker shown, yet undoubtedly proven as was in my case, to have acted blatantly with bias against one party, should immediately have his tenure terminated, if only to protect any other member of the public from suffering the same purposeful victimisation and deliberate criminalisation as I did. The extra blow he willingly and deliberately landed was the blatant breaching of the GIPA Act 2009, when he published verbatum the false Sworn Affidavit of the agency representative in its entirety, knowing such action is against the Act. Oh well, the reality is, who's going to call him to account? Absolutely nobody and he knows it! What a shameful example of his uncontrollable character and level of unchallenged power to those upcoming cases he will adjudicate! Those individuals should be very afraid to find themselves before him.
Why should such an individual, who is proven not to be able to bring an impartial mind to the task entrusted to him, be given a second chance in the judicial arena, placing the public at serious risk of deliberate damage, or have the opportunity to continue to take undeserving financial benefit from the public purse?
I acknowledge those Members who have displayed the integrity and professionalism naturally expected of them in their roles as judicial decision makers and community role models.
To the others, you should hang your heads in total shame. By the way, I overturned that decision on appeal and won a later remittal. And I make absolutely clear in all my resultant matters with NCAT, I do not want that individual to have any invovlement in any of my cases due to his blatant and proven bias against me, the brightest of red flags showing he just cannot be trusted.
I have experienced Tribunal Members who act with total integrity and professionalism, who work openly, respecting and listening to un-represented members of the public in continued efforts to uphold the objects of the NCAT Act 2013 and other legislation they are administering.
I have also experienced NCAT Tribunal Members who have shown they are far too easily wooed by agency legal teams, who refuse to listen to those same un-represented members of the public, Members who brush aside legitimate concerns and shut a pleading public down at first instance often resulting in examples of abuse of process and complete disregard for fundamental legal rights, affording unbridled favouritsm to learned colleagues.
Of most concern however is the fact I have also experienced a high-ranking Tribunal Member who acted with such total bias, he succeeded in redefining the term. This Member openly pandered to an agency’s flattering legal team, in fact leading the agency to submit pleasing documentation to the NCAT that would secure a favourable outcome, thereafter presiding over the case and making the harshest of decisions wrapped in personal hurtful comments deliberately designed to humiliate and denigrate a solitary un-represented member of the public. Regardless of whether or not a successful appeal is secured, these words forever achieve the desired level of damage and impact intended by a so-minded Tribunal Member, as they remain permanently accessible to the entire globe.
Tribunal Members are fully aware of the established processes and this one knew full well that I would have to fight to overturn his abominable decision, a decision that asserted I had been untruthful when I had not been.
At the same time however, the same Member was directed to untruths within the agency’s Sworn Affidavit and the Member did nothing, except embrace it wholeheartedly without asking a single question, he gobbled it up.
It is a shame this latter experience has left such a huge scar on me, with the good service and professionalism I had previously been shown by his colleagues paling in comparison.
It is my view that any judicial decision maker shown, yet undoubtedly proven as was in my case, to have acted blatantly with bias against one party, should immediately have his tenure terminated, if only to protect any other member of the public from suffering the same purposeful victimisation and deliberate criminalisation as I did. The extra blow he willingly and deliberately landed was the blatant breaching of the GIPA Act 2009, when he published verbatum the false Sworn Affidavit of the agency representative in its entirety, knowing such action is against the Act. Oh well, the reality is, who's going to call him to account? Absolutely nobody and he knows it! What a shameful example of his uncontrollable character and level of unchallenged power to those upcoming cases he will adjudicate! Those individuals should be very afraid to find themselves before him.
Why should such an individual, who is proven not to be able to bring an impartial mind to the task entrusted to him, be given a second chance in the judicial arena, placing the public at serious risk of deliberate damage, or have the opportunity to continue to take undeserving financial benefit from the public purse?
I acknowledge those Members who have displayed the integrity and professionalism naturally expected of them in their roles as judicial decision makers and community role models.
To the others, you should hang your heads in total shame. By the way, I overturned that decision on appeal and won a later remittal. And I make absolutely clear in all my resultant matters with NCAT, I do not want that individual to have any invovlement in any of my cases due to his blatant and proven bias against me, the brightest of red flags showing he just cannot be trusted.