Administrative law is the body of law that regulates government decision making. Access to review of government decisions is a key component of access to justice.
The Australian Government works to improve the quality of access to justice for individuals by adopting:
- best practice in administrative decision making
- effective review and accountability mechanisms.
The federal administrative law system
Administrative law offers accountability mechanisms that apply to government decision making about individual matters.
Accountability mechanisms include:
The Australian Government Administrative Law Policy Guide helps policy makers understand and identify administrative law issues in draft legislation or proposals.
- Australian Administrative Law Policy Guide
The Attorney-General's role
The Attorney-General has policy responsibility for administrative law. This includes oversight of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and legislative instruments.
The Attorney-General's approval must be sought for amendments to Acts for which they have responsibility, particularly the following:
The Legislation Act 2003 provides for the making, registration, publication, parliamentary scrutiny and sunsetting of Commonwealth delegated legislation.
Administrative Review Council
The Administrative Review Council (ARC) was an independent policy advisory body established under the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975. The ARC issued reports and best practice guides on administrative law issues. In 2015, the ARC was discontinued and its functions were consolidated into the Attorney General's Department. The Minister for Finance announced this as part of the May 2015 Smaller Government reforms.
The ARC was not a merits review body. It did not examine individual claims or hear appeals.
For copies of the ARC's 50 published reports and other publications, including its best practice guides, visit the Administrative Review Council – Publications page.
More information
Government agencies can seek specific advice on decision-making structures, review of decisions, regulatory powers provisions and legislative frameworks by emailing . Advice on matters relating to sunsetting under the Legislation Act can be sought by emailing .
A bill and hold is a type of sales arrangement that enables payment ahead of the delivery of the item. It constitutes a sales arrangement in which a seller of a product bills a customer for the product upfront but does not ship the product until a later date.
For a transfer of ownership to occur and the product to be sent out, certain conditions must be met. These conditions include payment for the goods, that the goods be segregated from all other similar goods by the seller, and that the goods be finished and ready for use.
Bill and hold sales agreements are also commonly referred to as "bill in place" agreements.
The bill and hold arrangement may be beneficial for both the buyer and the seller, but great care must be taken by both parties to ensure that all of the criteria are met. If the arrangement does not meet all of the stated criteria, there will be no transfer of ownership. This means that revenue can't be recognized by the seller, and no assets or inventory can be recorded by the buyer related to this transaction.
There have been many scandals surrounding a bill and hold arrangement in the corporate world, and care must be taken when analyzing this type of financial shenanigans.
- Bill and hold agreements represent a sales arrangement in which the buyer pays for the item or items a seller is offering, but the seller does not ship or deliver them right away but at a later date.
- Bill and hold agreements can be positive for both the buyer and the seller, particularly when the seller provides a discount or other incentive for the buyer to provide what is essentially an early payment.
- Bill and hold agreements have at times been abused by corporations as a way to give the impression that they posted bigger sales in a particular quarter or year than they actually did.
A classic example is Sunbeam’s ploy in November of 1996. To boost sales during CEO Al Dunlap’s “turnaround year,” Sunbeam convinced retailers to buy gas grills a full six months before they were needed—not a bad move, if you want to extend the seasonal nature of gas grill sales.
In exchange for big discounts, retailers gladly purchased merchandise they wouldn’t receive until months later and still wouldn't have to pay for until another six months after being invoiced. To make the arrangement even sweeter, Sunbeam agreed to store the grills in leased third-party warehouses until customers requested them.
Sunbeam initially booked the sales and profits from all $35 million in bill and hold transactions. However, in response to questions raised by the company's auditor, Sunbeam soon reversed a whopping $29 million of the $35 million in revenue, conceding it was recognized too quickly and shifting the sales to future quarters. Deceptive business moves and subsequent accounting treatments like this have earned these techniques the moniker “stuffing the channel.”