Stay of Cancellation of Child Care Benefit Approval 2: Galaxy Day Care Pty Ltd and Secretary, Department of Education and Training

This is a further case involving Galaxy Day Care Pty Ltd in its attempts to stay (put on hold) the decision of the Department to cancel its childcare benefit approval. 

This case was heard by the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal and involved an application for the stay of a decision made by the Department of Education and Training (the Respondent) to cancel the registration of Galaxy Day Care Pty Ltd (the Applicant) as a provider of childcare services under the A New Tax System (Family Assistance)(Administration) Act 1999 (Cth). The stay was being sought to enable it to be paid childcare benefits until the decision was reviewed by the Tribunal.
On 2 October 2018 the Department cancelled Galaxy's approval. Galaxy appealed to the Federal Court for a stay of that decision on 8 October 2018 and also made an application to the Respondent for an internal review of their decision on 10 October 2018. The Federal Court granted a stay until 22 November 2018 in order to provide time for the internal review to be conducted (see my previous blog post). On 21 November 2018 the Department notified the Galaxy that its internal review had resulted in an affirmation of the original cancellation decision. The approval was cancelled on a number of grounds  by the Department (as stated by the Tribunal):

The basis of the cancellation decision lies in the Respondent having found the Applicant to be seriously non-compliant, and indeed misleading, in its reporting of its activities under section 219N of the Act; making false claims for payment of child care benefits and breaching the ratio requirements of educators to children. It found these breaches to have taken place over a lengthy period from July 2017 to April 2018.These breaches were numerous, including 112 occasions when the Applicant made inaccurate claims that services were provided by educators who were overseas at the time of reported sessions; 118 where children were overseas and 210 where children were no longer in receipt of the Applicant’s services. There were some 700 further instances related to breaches of ratio requirements or misreporting resulting in overpayments of public money. (paras.20-1).

The Tribunal decided to not grant the stay, commenting:

Consideration of all the matters placed before the Tribunal must be undertaken in the light of the express purpose of s. 41(2) of the AAT Act which is that stays should be granted essentially “for the purpose of securing the effectiveness of the hearing and determination of the application for review” and the legitimate interests of other parties “affected by the review”.
The Tribunal is not persuaded that the granting of a stay in this instance is required in order to ensure that those express objectives are met. On the other hand it is persuaded that the Tribunal’s overall responsibility to promote “good government”, in this instance via protection of the public interest, weighs against a stay being granted. (paras.60-1).