NT vaccine mandate Supreme Court challenge ‘torpedoed’ by parliament

NT Anti-mandate challenge to apply for costs after a Supreme Court challenge rendered ‘futile’ by a last minute amendment.

A LAST minute tweak to the Public Health Act has ‘torpedoed’ a legal challenge to the government’s Covid powers.

United NT Businesses spokesman Mario Tsirbas announced that a court challenge to the Territory’s vaccine mandate had been killed off by the legislation changes in May.

In a Facebook livestream, Mr Tsirbas said the group of five plaintiffs would make an application to recover any costs in their Wednesday Supreme Court appearance.

“(It’s) to recover our costs from the government for all the work we have done,” he said.

Mr Tsirbas said amendments to “draconian” public emergency powers had ended their legal battle.

“They snuck them in last minute to effectively torpedo our case,” he said.

The Supreme Court challenge was launched by a Buslink driver, Coles worker and Power and Water Corporation employee in December, with a hospital admin worker and a Cullen Bay Day Spa owner joining later.

Cobie Campbell, hospital admin worker, was part of the NT Supreme Court challenge.

They claimed the vaccine mandate was not only unlawful, but racist as they classified Aboriginal people as a “vulnerable” group. The group even hired a legal juggernaut for their case, Queen’s Counsel Julian Burnside.

Yet a last-minute change has brought their six month legal fight to an end.

In May the NT parliament passed legislation to amend the Public and Environmental Health Act, including numerous last minute amendments during the five-hour late-night debate.

One of the amendments retrospectively cleared the government of any potential legal wrongdoing in the passing of the vaccine mandate.

It said chief health officer directions “given or purported to have been given” when handing down the vaccines mandate for workers in October 2021 “were, and are taken to always have been, valid under this Act”.

“And are taken to always have had, full force and effect on and from when they were given by the chief health officer,” it said.

During debate opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro was critical of the government pushing through four-pages of last-minute amendments, she joked had “drop(ped) out of the sky”.

“These amendments are to essentially retrospectively ensure that the directions the chief health officer made around mandatory vaccinations of workers are actually legal,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

“Presumably, the converse is true: that currently as it stands, the chief health officer does not have the legal standing to mandate vaccinations for workers.”

“This is to seal the deal to make sure that everyone in the United Business group does not sue the pants off you.”

Natasha Fyles listens to opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles rebutted claims that the previous directions were invalid, saying the amendment was to create greater legal certainty.

“It was around making sure there is absolutely no doubt in respect to the legal circumstances and the support of the decisions of the chief health officer,” she told the parliament.

“The High Court has made it absolutely clear that the Legislative Assembly has the power to retrospectively validate administrative decisions.

“We back our government and our chief health officer and the decisions to keep Territorians safe — and the work of the chief health officer and the Department of Health in making these directions.”

Following the legislation passing, in June Mr Tsirbas told a meeting of United NT Businesses that the new legislation had some “damaging elements” to their case.

“We have initiated action to discontinue the case, because it is futile” Mr Tsirbas said.

He alleged the amendments were made to “cover their backsides because they know they did the wrong thing originally”.