Trivedi v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCAFC 42 (4 April 2014)
Buchanan J provided the following analysis.
His Honour was content with saying that he was satisfied that it was not necessary for a visa applicant to know of or be directly involved in any falsehood for PIC 4020 to be engaged ([28] of his reasons).
In identifying the character or quality of the documents or information to which PIC 4020 is directed, much depends on the context and perceived purpose of PIC 4020, as well as the terms in which the prohibition in question is directed ([29] and [30]).
PIC 4020 addresses the problem of attempts to work a fraud or deception on the assessment of claims for a visa, which is evident from the fact that PIC 4020 states a “public interest” criterion ([31] and [32]).
His Honour would not infer any apparent intention to disqualify a visa applicant who could explain an innocent mistake in a document or information provided by them. PIC 4020 is not directed to innocent, unintended or accidental matters. However, different questions arise when information or documents in support of an application are revealed as false, in the “purposely untrue sense of that term” ([32]).
It should be accepted that an element of fraud or deception is necessary in order to attract the operation of PIC 4020 ([33]).
Similarly to charge that a statement is false is not to say only that it is wrong. The accusation potentially imports some element of knowledge or intention on somebody’s part ([33]).
The circumstances of the introduction of PIC 4020 confirm the view derived from the text of PIC 4020 that it is not directed to information or documents which are not tainted in the way indicated ([34]).
The submission that PIC 4020 applies to any “objectively” untrue statement or information provided by a visa applicant, so that even a completely innocent mistake would (subject to the waiver provisions in PIC 4020) be favourable to that visa application and any visa application by that applicant and each member of the family unit for the next three years, cannot be accepted ([41]).
It is not necessary to show knowing complicity by a visa applicant because that would impose an impossible task on those administering the visa system, but it is necessary that the information or document have the necessary quality of purposeful falsity, whether or not the visa applicant can be shown to have knowledge of that fact ([43])