Lock, stock and two smoking barrels

With the response to the pandemic seeming more like a game of thugs, gangsters and debt collectors, it’s not surprising to see more people joining the class action or creating their own legal challenges. And with many other legal challenges arising, especially in Victoria, some of you are wondering why these are finding themselves in the Court before ours.

Many of these other actions are challenging restriction of movement and the effects on business and using the Victorian hotel quarantine bungle as part of their argument. Not only is the Inquiry into the Victorian hotel quarantine incomplete, it is certainly no Royal Commission. And watching the thugs play their part is only causing us more frustration.

Our National Class Action is not limited to Victoria and it is tackling a much wider variety of issues including hotel quarantine, extended detention & isolation, lack of proper assessment, forced & coerced medication & testing, cross-border rules, inconsistent business closures, impacts on employment, inappropriate contract tracing, PPE, fines and much more.

Also, we know there is a lot of disingenuousness in the story we are told to try to legitimise the use of draconian responses and we do not agree with this narrative and wish to challenge it. So, the scope is quite expansive, while other Court actions are narrow in what they are challenging and therefore the process of drafting a statement of claim is obviously much quicker for them.

Our National Class Action is tackling all the above issues and more, thus requiring us to have sourced many lead applicants in all impact areas and to extricate each of their statements and evidence in order to draft the statement of claim.

We had to sift through 5600+ submissions to do it, but we have found all our leads. We have their information and we are now drafting. While many of you indicated you wished to be a lead, we can only put forward a select few. And as we are such a small team working through a high volume of applications, it simply is not possible to call everyone, but your submission will be reflected in the numbers giving further weight to an already persuasive lead statement.

While working on the National Class Action, we have been working on our other class action for the false imprisonment of the Melbourne detention towers. These are our two barrels and this one is loaded and almost ready to issue at Court. It has a significant number of issues to challenge, which we must do to confront the changes proposed in the Omnibus Bill; to ensure these hard lockdowns cannot be a reality again.

A legal challenge of this magnitude with this many nuances, takes time to craft but we can assure you we are close. So while we get ready to fire our two rounds, we just want to thank you once again for your patience and ongoing commitment and reassure you that the target is still in sight, the ammunition being loaded and the finger itching for the trigger.

#advocateme #sereneteffaha #CutTheRestrictions #auspol #FreeVictoria #FreeAustralia #covid-19