Tenant’s bid to have his name removed from a published tenancy decision dismissed (ACAT, 2026)

What happened

The tenant had been a respondent in an earlier ACAT case that came out of a residential tenancy agreement. The tribunal recorded that the dispute was not about rent or about damage to the property caused by the tenant. In broad terms it was about whether a Notice to Vacate served on a "no fault" basis was valid. The matter was appealed, the issues in the appeal were mainly legal ones, and for that reason the appeal decision was published.

The tenant then lodged an interim application, on 23 June 2025, asking for what he called "suppression" of personal information in that published decision. He said a PDF of the decision, with his name and his partner's name on it, was the first thing that came up when their names were typed into a search engine. That meant anyone searching for them would see they had been parties to a residential tenancy dispute that went to appeal. He argued this was likely to harm their prospects of getting future rental accommodation, submitting that "in Australia prospective tenants are heavily scrutinised by agents and landlords far beyond their ability to pay rent" and that a tenant's attempt to secure their rights through a legal process "could widely be perceived as problematic behaviour".

The tenant had no objective evidence to support that assertion and asked the tribunal to draw on its own experience as a specialist tribunal. He also set out how the tribunal's website could be changed to limit the ability of bots and search engines to index documents on it, and asked the tribunal to take those steps.

The application was heard on 5 August 2025. The tenant appeared in person. The respondents, the other side in the tenancy matter, did not appear, and the application was unopposed.

What each side wanted

The tenant asked for two things: that his and his partner's personal information be suppressed in the published appeal decision, and that the tribunal change its website so search engines could not index its decisions. He accepted, when asked directly, that there was nothing different or special about his own case; his argument was that residential tenancy proceedings in general, and the particular vulnerability of tenants, meant tenants' names should not be published at all, because publishing them damages their rights and weakens the protections tenancy law is meant to give them. The respondents did not appear and did not oppose the application, but the tribunal pointed out that its power to make a non-publication order is limited to the circumstances set out in the legislation, whether or not anyone objects.

What the tribunal decided

The tribunal made two orders. First, under section 39(2)(b) of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2008, it directed that the names of the parties to this interim application not be published, that the applicant be known as "A Smith" and the first and second respondents as "B Brown" and "C Brown", and that the matter number be redacted from the published version of the reasons. Second, it ordered that "the interim application lodged 23 June 2025 be dismissed".

No money was claimed and none was ordered. The earlier published appeal decision was left as it was, with the parties' names in it.

On the website request, the presidential member said he had no authority to make orders about how the tribunal registry operates and so could not order the registry to change the website. He noted that the President was already aware of the indexing issue and that it was with the appropriate operational area of the registry for consideration and action.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

The starting point is section 38 of the ACAT Act, which says the hearing of an application must be in public unless an order is made under section 39. The tribunal explained that this reflects the long-standing common law principle of "open justice", and quoted Russell v Russell, where Gibbs J said the ordinary rule is that proceedings are conducted publicly and in open view, because without public scrutiny "abuses may flourish undetected". Open justice, the tribunal said, is not only there to protect the parties; it protects the integrity of the justice system as a whole. The right to a public hearing is therefore not a personal right that a party can simply waive, which is why an unopposed application still has to meet the statutory test.

Section 39 sets that test. The tribunal can order a private hearing or restrict publication only if it is satisfied that the right to a public hearing is outweighed by competing interests, and section 39(5) defines when that happens: to protect morals, public order or national security; because the interest of the private lives of the parties requires the privacy; or, so far as strictly necessary, because in the special circumstances of the application publicity would prejudice the interests of justice. The tribunal also noted the limited common law categories where privacy has been allowed, such as the identity of a blackmail victim, confidential information, a police informant or national security, and said that courts have an inherent power in those cases but the tribunal does not.

At the hearing the member asked the tenant what it was about his situation that would allow the tribunal to find either that his or his partner's private lives required privacy, or that there were special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice. The tenant's answer, described as thoughtful, articulate and compelling, was that there was nothing special about his case. The tribunal found that this was the problem: he was effectively asking it to create a whole class of protected litigants, tenants, whose circumstances as renters are common and so not "special" in the sense of being unusual. Doing that would be an extraordinarily adventurous step for a single member in an uncontested interim application on appeal, and the member was not persuaded it would even be correct. He pointed out that anonymity could be abused, for example by a tenant who persistently fails to pay rent, damages property or sublets unlawfully, and asked where it would leave lessors, boarders and lodgers, owners corporations, service providers and contractors. These were complicated policy questions better left to the legislature.

Two further points went to discretion. The member said that, from hearing evidence in the residential tenancies jurisdiction, rental applications can ask whether a person has ever been a party to a tribunal proceeding, so a non-publication order may be futile. More importantly, the order was sought after the decision had already been published and distributed, so anonymising the version on the tribunal's website would not be enough: the decision would have to be republished and redistributed to legal databases such as AustLII. The tribunal does that occasionally, but only for compelling reasons, which were not established here. That last point did not apply to the interim decision itself, and the member was satisfied there were special circumstances justifying pseudonyms for it, because the application raised serious questions of law and the entire purpose of the proceeding would be defeated if another decision were published with the tenants' names on it.

What this means if you are in a similar position

If you are in a similar position and worry about your name appearing in a published tribunal decision, this case shows how narrowly the rule is applied in the ACT. Public hearings are the default under section 38 of the ACAT Act, and a non-publication order under section 39 requires the tribunal to be satisfied that the right to a public hearing is outweighed by one of the specific competing interests listed in the section. Embarrassment, inconvenience, or a general concern about how being a party might look to future landlords is not treated as enough on its own, and the fact that nobody opposes the request does not change the test.

The decision also shows that timing and evidence matter. The tribunal noted that an application brought after a decision has been published and sent out to legal databases is a much bigger ask, because the decision would have to be republished and redistributed. It also noted that the tenant had no objective evidence for his central claim about the effect on rental applications. And the tribunal explained that a single member hearing an appeal has no power to order changes to the registry's website or to how its decisions are indexed; that was a matter for the registry's operational area.

For the underlying problem in this case, a notice to vacate, the practical path most people take is the ordinary one: put your position to the landlord or agent in writing first, setting out what the tenancy law requires of a valid notice and what you say is wrong with it, and then, if that does not resolve it, make an application to the tribunal.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a ACAT application. More decisions: ACAT cases and house rentals and bonds.

Source: SMITH (a pseudonym) v BROWN (a pseudonym) & ANOR (Appeal) [2026] ACAT 8 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.