Review of decisions

If you’re affected by a decision relating to operator accreditation or driver authorisation, you may apply to us for an internal review of that decision.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal review, you may apply to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal for an external review of the review decision.

Read the following to find out how to ask us to review a decision and about what decisions we can review under the Transport Operations (Passenger Transport) Act 1994 (PT Act) and Transport Operations (Passenger Transport) Regulation 2018 (PT Regulation).

Reviewable decisions affecting driver authorisation

You may apply to us for an internal review if you’re affected by a decision:

• relating to a category B driver disqualifying offence, to refuse to grant or renew DA or cancel DA (under section 28B of PT Act) and if the offence is not a serious or disqualifying blue card offence
• relating to a category C driver disqualifying offence, to refuse to grant or renew DA or cancel DA (under section 28C of PT Act)
• to refuse to grant or renew DA or to impose a condition on DA (under section 29 of PT Act)
• to amend, suspend, cancel or impose a condition on DA (under section 32 of PT Act)
• to impose a condition when granting DA or amend a DA to impose a condition (under section 47(2) of the PT Regulation.

Read more information about the effect of criminal history on driver authorisation.

Non-reviewable decisions affecting driver authorisation

Decisions are not reviewable if:

• if you have been convicted of a category A driver disqualifying offence
• if you’re convicted of a category B driver disqualifying offence and Blue Card Services decides that an exceptional case does not exist.

Reviewable decisions affecting operator accreditation

You may apply to us for an internal review if you’re affected by a decision:

• to refuse to grant or renew OA (under section 17 of PT Act)
• to amend, suspend or cancel OA (under section 20 of PT Act)

Applying for an internal review

If you’re affected by a reviewable decision, you may apply to us to review that decision. This process is referred to as a review of the original decision.

You must apply within 28 days after we give you the notice of the original decision with our reasons. You must write to us in detail about the grounds for seeking a review of the original decision.

If our notice of the original decision did not include our reasons, you can ask us for these within 28 days after we give you the original decision. Once we give you our reasons for the original decision then you must apply for the review within 28 days.

We may also extend the period you can apply for a review.

Applying for a stay of the original decision

If you apply to us to review our original decision, you may also immediately apply to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to have our original decision paused. This is called a stay of the decision.

Information on lodging an application for a stay of the original decision to QCAT can be found on the QCAT website or by contacting QCAT on 1300 753 228. Your application should state the reasons you are applying for the stay and comply with the QCAT Rules.

If you’re granted a stay and you’re driver authorisation or operator accreditation is current, you may continue to use that authority until the outcome of the review of the original decision or for the time the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal specify.

Even if you’re issued with a stay, if we’ve refused your application to renew an authority, then you will not be able to provide a service after the expiry date of your current authorisation. Similarly, if we’ve refused your new application, you don’t hold a current authority enabling you to drive or operate a service.

Sometimes the tribunal may make the stay valid until the outcome of any possible subsequent external review or extend the time.

If the tribunal sets no date, the stay ends when you’re notified of the outcome of original decision review.

Your application for a stay does not affect the original decision, or the carrying out of the original decision, unless the tribunal orders a stay of the decision.

Internal review decision

A written notice of the review decision must be given to the applicant within 28 days of the review application being made with TMR. The review decision must either confirm the original decision, amend the original decision or substitute a new decision.

If the review decision is not the decision sought by the applicant, a QCAT Information Notice must be issued to the applicant. This notice will provide information about:

• the decision and the reasons for the reviewed decision
• the person’s right to apply to QCAT for an external review of the review decision
• the person’s right to apply to QCAT for a stay of the reviewed decision.

Applying for an external review

If our review decision not what you seek then you may apply to Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) for an external review of that decision.

Your application to QCAT must be made within 28 days from when we let you know our review decision and the reasons for our review decision. The tribunal may extend this time.

Applications to QCAT must be accompanied by the prescribed application fee. For more information on QCAT fees or the review process please refer to the QCAT website or contact QCAT on 1300 753 228.