The Federal Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the appellants had not advanced before the primary judge the fraud contention they sought to rely on in the appeal — namely, that they were misled into believing a protection visa application could be converted to a student visa after six months. The Court found the case actually run below was that the protection visa application was lodged without the appellants' knowledge or authority, which the primary judge rejected on the evidence. In obiter, Button J confirmed that had the convertibility-based fraud contention been properly raised and established, it was capable in principle of supporting declaratory relief that no valid visa application was made (thereby avoiding the s 48 bar), because the asserted fraud went to the nature of the visa applied for, not merely to a future failure to convert it.
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