In 1994 the Administrative and Disciplinary Division of the District Court was created within the South Australian District Court [District Court Act 1991 s.8(3)]. The Administrative Appeals Division has jurisdiction to hear matters under various State statutes. Although there has been significant development in recent years in this area of law, because of the Division's recent inception its jurisdiction to hear matters is still limited.

The South Australian system differs from the Commonwealth in that the Commonwealth has set up a generalist tribunal (the Administrative Appeals Tribunal) to which administrative appeals in a number of jurisdictions can be directed, while South Australia has created a division of the District Court which can sit as a general appeal tribunal but which can only hear matters where jurisdiction has been specifically given by statute. The jurisdiction has some 40 categories, including many of the disciplinary proceedings that were formerly dealt with by the Commercial Tribunal. Examples include the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 , Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1996 and the Security and Investigation Agents Act 1995 . In particular, the Consumer Credit (SA) Act 1995 gives the Court extensive powers to deal with credit problems including many minor matters.