Letter · Administrative & Public Law
Request for a statement of reasons for an administrative decision, with reasons-deficiency table
A request for written reasons under the ART Act 2024 (Cth) s 268 or the ADJR Act s 13, with a table for testing the reasons that come back against s 25D and the review grounds.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- Australia, Commonwealth, New Zealand
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use promptly after a Commonwealth decision that affects the client and was not accompanied by full reasons, before deciding on merits or judicial review. Do not use where the decision already contains full reasons or the enabling Act sets its own reasons regime, unless you need more detail.
How AI may be used
AI may fill in the request from the decision notice and build the deficiency table from the reasons received. A lawyer decides which reasons regime applies, whether the request is in time and what any gap means for review.
AI may
- Draft the request from the decision notice, carrying across the decision date, reference and provision for the lawyer to check.
- Build the reasons-deficiency table from the statement received and the enabling provisions the lawyer names, with paragraph references.
- List submissions, evidence or statutory criteria that the reasons do not mention.
AI must not
- Must not decide whether the decision is reviewable or which reasons regime applies.
- Must not describe a gap in the reasons as a reviewable error in advice to the client without lawyer review.
- Must not upload the decision notice or the client's personal information into a tool that retains or trains on inputs.
The lawyer checks
- Which regime applies: ART Act s 268 for a reviewable decision, ADJR Act s 13 (subject to s 13(11) and Schedule 2), or the enabling Act.
- The request is made within 28 days after the decision document was given (ADJR s 13(5)(a); ART Act s 269(8)(a)).
- The 28-day response date and every review deadline are diarised.
- Each row of the deficiency table is checked against the statement itself, not an AI summary of it.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Administrative & Public Law
- Freedom of information access application (Commonwealth, with NSW and NZ variants and review follow-ups)
- Request for reasons and review of an automated or AI-assisted government decision
- Application to the Administrative Review Tribunal for review: completion guide (including the Generative AI Practice Direction)
- Complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman: preparation guide and complaint summary
- Agency AI transparency statement under the DTA standard: advice note and template for government clients
All precedents for Administrative & Public Law · Tasks and AI use in this area