Federal Court case update

Many are asking for an update on what happened yesterday in the Federal Court.

Here is a detailed video which features Meryl Dorey, Founder of the AVN (the applicant, and my client), and Julian Gillespie, former barrister and legal consultant to the AVN, breaking it down in detail:

If you would prefer to read, here are some words from me:

On 23 March 2022 we had our first major hearing in this matter. The hearing was about two things;

First, whether the AVN has “standing” (sometimes called competency) which means, whether the AVN has the lawful authority to bring our case as an applicant; and

Second, whether Mr Mark Neugebauer, someone who lost his job due to a vaccine mandate, and whose foster son is being told he must receive the vaccine by a Government Department in South Australia, has standing to join the case as a second applicant.

It was a long day full of jargon and legal argument. That’s what hearings about standing are like; it’s a technical legal question, far removed from the nuts and bolts of our primary case. Put simply, the question boils down to whether the proposed applicants have a “special interest” in the matter. Here, the applicant and the respondent have a different idea of what having a “special interest” actually means. In law, when such a disagreement occurs, you have to look at the common law. We say the test has been the same since the 1800s, and that clearly both the AVN and Mr Neugebauer have a “special interest” in the decisions we are challenging. The respondent, relying on some alternative definitions, says they don’t.

These kinds of arguments can be very frustrating to watch, particularly for those of us who say that people are being harmed, and even killed, as a result of decisions that have been wrongfully made by the Respondent. In saying that, the Court is entitled, and indeed has a duty, to satisfy itself that the applicants have standing to bring the case – otherwise, they don’t actually have the jurisdiction to hear it.

So, after many months of work, we’ve now done our absolute best to jump the first major hurdle that has been placed before us. Now, we have a few days to wait until her Honour makes her decision. If either the AVN or Mr Neugebauer are found to have standing, we forge ahead to a hearing on 20 April 2022, when the Court will consider our application to quash the decision to allow the administration of the Pfizer vaccine to 5-11 year old kids.