Dwell
Two of Senator Jacqui Lambie’s former staffers have been ordered to pay the Commonwealth authorities virtually $100,000 for his or her conduct in an unfair dismissal trial through which they tried to smear the senator.
Ex-chief of employees Rob Messenger and his spouse Fern, who managed the senator’s workplaces, have been sacked for critical misconduct in 2017 after Mr Messenger despatched a letter to the prime minister about alleged inappropriate office behaviour.
After being fired, they launched unfair dismissal claims towards Senator Lambie within the Federal Court docket.
The Messengers represented themselves within the case, which took 5 years to resolve. Justice John Snaden dismissed their claims in June 2022.
The commonwealth authorities’s attendance over the 16-day trial value it about $200,0000, and it utilized to the court docket to have Messengers pay their prices.
The Messengers filed greater than 1000 pages of pointless proof in 2019, an incredible bulk of which was irrelevant.
The court docket was additionally requested by the Messengers to difficulty subpoenas to a lot of potential witnesses who had no reference to the case, which added to the Commonwealth’s authorized prices.
The federal government claimed it was unreasonable for the Messengers to have spent a lot time adducing “irrelevant or scandalous” proof and stated they used the trial as a “broad-ranging judicial inquiry into” Senator Lambie’s character or trial by media.
Justice Snaden discovered the Messengers’ conduct in the course of the case was unreasonable and ordered every of them to pay the Commonwealth $47,300.
“I settle for that the trial was prolonged unreasonably by the Messengers’ insistence on exploring issues that bore no reference to something that they’d pleaded,” he wrote in a judgment on Wednesday.
“Self-represented litigants aren’t at liberty to waste their opponents’ [and the court’s] time by requiring that they sift by way of and take into account – and, as right here, oppose – acres of irrelevant and scandalous materials.”
Witnesses subpoenaed by the Messengers included senior political figures, journalists and members of Senator Lambie’s household.
The choose stated their presence was sought at trial to “smear” the Senator.
Senator Lambie’s software for prices was dismissed, as Justice Snaden discovered the Messengers’ rejection of her provide of six weeks’ pay to resolve the case was not unreasonable.
-AAP
