Graeme Neate Memorial Award

Overview

From 2026 and then every two years, the Council of Australasian Tribunals (COAT) will offer an Award of up to $10,000 to encourage research and best practice in an area of tribunal excellence in Australia and New Zealand. The successful applicant will be invited to present the outcome of their study at the COAT annual conference.

This Award is open to all but is particularly designed for people working in or interacting with tribunals, who have the capacity to contribute to excellence in tribunals in a practical way. The Award is made in memory of Graeme Neate AM. Graeme had a distinguished career in the law and was the longest serving tribunal leader in Australia.Graeme led several tribunals, including the National Native Title Tribunal (1999-2013) and the ACT Civil & Administrative Tribunal (2017-2023). In keeping with his hallmark sense of public service, Graeme played a significant role in COAT both at the time of its formation in the 1990s, and in the six years before his death in 2023 as a member of COAT’s executive. He was committed to professional development in tribunals and to improving access to justice especially for marginalised people. Graeme wrote extensively on Aboriginal land rights, native title and cultural heritage issues and helped to establish the Indigenous Law Program and the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of New South Wales. Objectives of the Award

The aims of the Award are:

To foster innovative approaches and new research relevant toachieving excellence in tribunals as expressedin COAT’s Australia and New Zealand Tribunal Excellence Framework https://coat.asn.au/publicationitems/tribunals-excellence-framework/
To support projects which develop practical ways to assist tribunals achieve excellence
To encourage research and projects which could improve access to tribunals
To foster diversity, inclusion and equity in tribunals.

Who is the Award for?

The grant is open to all but is especially targeted to members, staff or users of tribunals, legal professionals, academics, and researchers, with an interest in tribunals

Eligibility

Any person aged over 18 years is eligible to apply for the Award. Applications may be made by more than one person.

First Nations applicants and applicants from culturally and linguistically diverse communities are encouraged to apply.

Selection Process

The Award will be granted by the COAT Executive. A subcommittee of the COAT Executive will review the applications and make a recommendation to the Executive.

Applicants will generally be assessed on their ability to demonstrate:

A developed proposal witha clear connection to tribunal excellence and/or access to justice, including:
- Contribution to an important gap in knowledge relating to tribunal practice
- Demonstration of the capacity of the proposal to have a practical impact upon how tribunals can achieve excellence
- Novelty/originality and innovation of the proposed research or the proposed project (including new methods, technologies, theories or practices)
- Extent to which the research/projecthas the potential to enhance the objectives of the grant.
Relevant past experience and skills (including any barriers faced that prevented or inhibited the applicant from furthering their experience), and the alignment of the proposal with those skills and experience

Commitment to understanding and pursuing issues of access to justice in tribunals and/or dedication to diversity and inclusion, cross-cultural understanding.

Funding allocation

The Award can be used for any reasonable cost associated with the project. For example, fees to support the applicant to undertake the project, if not in receipt of a full-time wage; travel costs; administrative support; the cost of conducting a survey.

The successful applicant will be invited to present the outcomes of the project at the COAT annual conference. COAT will pay the costs to register to attend that conference. Any transportation and accommodation costs incurred to attend the conference will be the responsibility of the successful applicant. The Award can be used to fund those costs.

The successful applicant will be asked to account for expenditure as a condition of the Award.

Advancing Tribunal Excellence

The Graeme Neate Memorial Award

The application process is via an online form. It is always safer to prepare your answers offline (e.g. Word or Google Docs) and keep a backup.

Before you start the application you’ll need the following:

Your CV saved as a PDF (max 5MB).
Diversity and inclusion details (if relevant to your project).
Project name and description (250 words max).
Explanation of how your proposal fulfils the Award objectives.
A breakdown of how you propose to use the $10,000 grant.
Any other information you wish the committee to consider.

If you prefer, you can upload a document for each section instead of typing into the form. PDFs only, maximum file size 5MB per upload.

APPLY NOW

Key Dates – see below.

Key Dates

Event	Description	Date and Time
Opening Date	Applications and questions about the application process can be submitted from this date.	9:00am AEST on Monday 1 October 2025
Questions Closing Date	Any questions about the application process must be submitted by this date.	9:00am AEST on Thursday, 26 February 2026
Closing Date	Applications must be received by education@coat.asn.au by this time and date.	11:59am AEST on Wednesday, 1 April 2026
Announcement of successful applicant.	Announcement of successful applicant.	COAT Conference, Adelaide 4, 5 June 2026

Graeme Neate Obituary – 23 June 2023

Tribunal members throughout Australia and New Zealand will be deeply saddened to learn of the death last weekend of the much-loved and deeply respected elder statesman of the tribunal community, Graeme Neate AM.

The longest serving tribunal leader in Australia, Graeme was:

Inaugural Chairperson, Land Tribunals (1992–2001)
President of the National Native Title Tribunal (1999–2013)
Commissioner, Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (2014–2017)
President of the ACT Civil & Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) (2017–2023)

In 2015, Graeme was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for his significant service to the law as a leading contributor to Indigenous land rights, and to legal education.

Remarkable as they are, Graeme’s career achievements do not sum him up. Nor do they explain why he had such an impact on so many and why his influence for good was so great.

Graeme quietly mentored successive generations of Australian tribunal leaders and generously shared his knowledge and wisdom about the difficult task of leading tribunals—making these important institutions accessible to the people they were established to serve and places where people wanted to work.

Graeme was the go-to person for many tribunal leaders when confronted with a seemingly unsolvable problem. Members and staff who had the privilege to work with him had an encouraging and compassionate leader of great integrity, always willing to share his legal acumen.

In keeping with his hallmark sense of public service, Graeme played a significant role in the Council of Australian Tribunals (COAT). He contributed to the formation of COAT in the 1990s and, since 2017, served as a member of its Executive. Only six weeks before his death, Graeme led a two-day masterclass in Sydney designed to strengthen the skills of members responsible for professional development in tribunals. An interview with him about the art of tribunal leadership was a highlight of the COAT 2022 conference.

On behalf of the COAT Executive, I extend my sincerest condolences to Graeme’s wife Jennifer and his family. We have lost a giant of the tribunal community. He will be deeply missed.

May he rest in peace.

Anne Britton
Chair, COAT