Updates on Ministerial Intervention Guidelines as of September 2025

Tony Burke, Minister of Home Affairs, updated the Department of Home Affairs’ procedures for handling Ministerial Intervention requests on 4 September 2025 by signing three new Ministerial Instructions.

The updated Ministerial Intervention guidelines include:

A request for the Ministerial Intervention powers under the Migration Act of 1958’s sections 351 and 501J.
Handling Ministerial Intervention requests in accordance with subsection 46A(2).
Handling Ministerial Intervention requests in accordance with Article 48B(1).

Why the Ministerial Intervention guidelines changed

The new rules come from the High Court’s ruling in Davis v. Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services, and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 10.

Following the High Court’s ruling in Davis v. Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services, and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 10, numerous petitions remained unanswered. The ruling determined that the Department’s use of subjective criteria for referrals to the Minister was invalid, necessitating these changes.

The new guidelines for Ministerial Intervention seek to:

reduce speculative or unmeritorious demands;
increase openness;
establish transparent and objective threshold standards; and
develop a procedure that is more legally sound to minimise the risk of future legal issues.

What effect does this have on both new and existing Ministerial Intervention application requests?

Approximately 30,000 applications for Ministerial Intervention are still outstanding as of right now. How these will be handled is described in the updated guidelines:

Pre-Davis caseload: Unless otherwise exempted, requests under sections 351 and 501J, as well as those currently impacted by the Davis decision, will be closed using Personal Procedural Decisions (PPDs). Under the new framework, people whose cases are closed may reapply.
Post-Davis caseload: new requests will be evaluated in accordance with the guidelines’ updated objective standards. The Minister may consider requests that satisfy the new requirements; requests that don’t will be closed.

What changed in the guidelines for Ministerial Intervention?

Although the three guidelines have a similar format, the directions in sections 351 and 501J are more specific.

The key parts of the guidelines include:

clarification of the intervention’s grounds in the public interest;
who is eligible to submit a request and how it needs to be submitted;
lists of situations that should and shouldn’t be referred to;
recommendations for the Department’s evaluation and handling of petitions;
use of the Minister’s complete and summary contributions; and Verification of the official enlivenment of the Minister’s powers.

What powers have been covered?

In the public interest, the Minister may substitute a more favourable ruling than the Administrative Review Tribunal’s (ART) ruling under Sections 351 and 501J. This discretionary power allows the Minister to consider the unique circumstances of each case. Refusals or cancellations of protection visas are particularly covered by Section 501J.
If it is in the public interest, the Minister may approve an Unauthorised Maritime Arrival (UMA) to submit a legitimate visa application onshore under subsection 46A(2).
The Minister may lift the section 48A bar under subsection 48B(1), allowing a person to apply for a second protection visa while in Australia for a period of seven days.

What does it mean to you?

These rules serve as a refresher on how Ministerial Intervention petitions will be processed, whether you have already submitted one or are filing one. They offer a more transparent structure, but they also place more stringent restrictions on the manner and timing of instances that might be submitted to the Minister.

Due to the complexity of the process and the limited situations in which the Minister will personally intervene, it is crucial that you obtain legal counsel before submitting a request for Ministerial Intervention. This will ensure that you are guided through the process and your rights are protected.

We’re here to help you!

Our visa specialists at ONE derland Consulting will assist you with the Ministerial Intervention application. With a 98% success rate, we are one of Australia’s most highly recommended migration agents. You can trust us to guide you through this process. Read our 4.9* score customer reviews to see the success stories of our clients.

We are complex visa specialists. As registered Australian migration agents with the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA), we are regulated in our professional practice and bound by the profession’s Code of Conduct issued by the MARA.

Get in touch with us today to start your journey towards permanent residency in Australia with confidence. You can reach us by email at [email protected], by phone at 1300 827 159, via WhatsApp at +61494367258, or by booking an online consultation.

Update: Ministerial Intervention Guidelines as of 2025