Cairns vaccine mandate court action likely to proceed to trial

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The Supreme Court in Cairns has heard a legal battle against vaccine mandates by a group of Far North Queensland businesses will probably go to trial.

Helga’s Pancake House owner, Birgit Machnitzke, is leading the court action and has been joined by the operators of Slap and Pickle, The Jerky and Nut Shop, The Billabong Kuranda, Ransom Specialty Coffee and Mission Beach Tavern.

The latter was recently shut down for allegedly refusing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccination mandate.

A Mount Isa-based café and a bar in Toowoomba are also supporters.

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They’re applying for a review of directives from then Acting Chief Health Officer Dr Peter Aitken on December 7 and Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard on December 24 that forced hospitality businesses to employ only fully vaccinated staff and banned un-jabbed patrons from entering their venues.

Their application, aimed at having the mandates either set aside or suspended, was submitted to the Supreme Court in Cairns this morning.

Justice Jim Henry told the court he saw no reason for the matter not to proceed to trial and offered to set a trial date.

However, the court heard the Health Officers' team is pushing for the trial to be held in Brisbane, where about five other similar cases are before the courts.

“The respondent’s proposal was to have a number of these matters of a similar nature to be heard in Brisbane before the one judge, given that they’re invariably likely to involve similar issues and evidence,” the applicant’s lawyer Matthew Gibson said.

“Our clients have been asked to consent to that transfer, however at this stage we haven’t had the opportunity to obtain instructions in relation to that.”

Whether the transfer will proceed is expected to be decided when the matter returns to the Supreme Court in Cairns on March 30.

A crowd-funding campaign to pay for the applicants' legal costs has so far raised almost $20,000.