Goyder candidate Carolyn Reynolds takes former speaker Kezia Purick to court after alleged parliament ban

INDEPENDENT candidate for Goyder, Carolyn Reynolds, has taken legal action against political rival Kezia Purick after the former speaker allegedly banned her from Parliament House last week.

Former speaker Kezia Purick has indicated she will recontest the seat of Goyder in the August election.

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INDEPENDENT candidate for Goyder, Carolyn Reynolds, has taken legal action against political rival Kezia Purick after the former speaker allegedly banned her from Parliament House last week.

Ms Reynolds is seeking mediation under the Personal Violence Restraining Order Act for what she described in court on Tuesday as “ongoing harassment, hurts, harms and hostilities”.

“There were continual, ongoing issues from the last four years of which the final one was I went into parliament at 9.53 on the morning when Ms Purick resigned,” she told the Darwin Local Court on Tuesday.

“A I walked through the security with my phone and my wallet I was handed a notice from the speaker to once again refuse me to be in parliament — I had done nothing.”

Judicial registrar Kris Norrington said while the PVRO Act didn’t cover disputes over decisions made by the Speaker there were other, albeit “vague”, allegations before the court that could constitute a prima facie case.

But Ms Reynolds explained she left out much of the detail “in good faith, to protect the reputation of the Speaker”.

“I would request, your honour, that we be able to have an opportunity to mediate, to make sure that this next period of electioneering goes smoothly and there’s nothing that can hurt or harm either myself or Ms Purick in order to make sure that two people who are in the public arena have an opportunity to represent themselves without malice or without hurt or harm,” she said.

Ms Purick’s lawyer, Christine Osborne, argued the complaints should be thrown out as baseless.

“There’s no evidence in relation to any of the allegations made by Ms Reynolds and without that information, it’s my respectful submission that a referral to mediation is not appropriate,” she said.

“In circumstances where there’s a political element in relation to this application I just think it’s not appropriate for my client to be addressing mediation without a proper outline of what it is that she’s supposed to have threatened Ms Reynolds over.”

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In adjourning the hearing to allow Ms Reynolds to set out her allegations in full, Mr Norrington said the lack of detail was not enough to immediately dismiss the case.

“My view is that it’s not so lacking that it should be dismissed at this stage but certainly no order is going to be made,” he said.

The parties return to court on July 14.

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