The Commonwealth Government hid the identities of key decision-makers who approved the controversial covid gene-vaccines, the Federal Court heard on Thursday.
Covid Vaccine Class Action barrister Dominic Villa, SC, told the court that the injured had previously requested the Government reveal the names of the exact bureaucrats who approved the vaccines under the Freedom of Information Act.
“The Commonwealth for some reason chose, in responding to the FOI applications, to not disclose the identity of the people who made the decisions,” Mr Villa told the court.
“When you have documents that contain information but the names of the author of the document, the recipient of the document are redacted, it becomes very difficult to follow the flow of information and that itself creates an information asymmetry.”
Mr Villa said that as the proceedings had now commenced, he was unable to pursue obtaining those names by other means.
Justice Nicholas Owens responded that the problem was the Class Action didn’t have enough information to bring their claim and plead it properly.
“The problem was you didn’t have enough information to decide whether or not you could bring a claim,” he said.
The outcome of the interlocutory hearing, held on Thursday and Friday, will determine whether the injured can progress to having their case heard.
The class action was filed against five respondents:
Former Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy,
Former Health Department Deputy Secretary and TGA head John Skerritt,
Former chief medical officer Paul Kelly,
Former Health Minister Greg Hunt, and
The Commonwealth of Australia.
On Friday, Mr Villa intimated that the claims may no longer be pressed against former Health Minister Greg Hunt.
One of the sticking points is the Commonwealth argued that the four named respondents are not responsible for the decision to approve the covid gene-vaccines, even though they were the heads of the relevant agencies.
Australian Government Solicitor senior executive lawyer Alison Thomson wrote to the applicants’ lawyers in November 2023, saying none of the decisions to approve the vaccines were made by any of the Commonwealth officers, according to Justice Katzmann’s previous interlocutory judgement, here.
Ms Thomson requested more particulars, and Justice Katzmann granted extra time.
The staffer who makes the final decision on whether to register a vaccine or not is the “Delegate” of the Secretary of the Department of Health, and operates within the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
The Health Department has been secretive about its internal decision-making processes, redacting the names of the Delegates who green-lit the controversial gene-based products.
The Government has never released the Delegates’ names.
This creates a Catch-22, a bureaucracy straight out of a Franz Kafka novel, as Government solicitors demand the exact names that the Government itself won’t release.
Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann, who is spearheading the Class Action on behalf of the covid vaccine injured, appeared in Sydney for the hearings.
Friday’s session ended at 11.45am with a touch of anguish in the air. It was a rough couple of days for the injured who have been battling for years to have their crowd-funded case heard. They now face the prospect of having their efforts cut off before its substance can be heard.
The case awaits Justice Owen’s decision as to whether it may continue.
CONTROVERSY OVER JAB PRODUCTS
The Federal Government is widely perceived to have been duplicitous in its promotion of the covid gene-vaccines, assuring the public of a transparency and accountability that is not enforceable in the courts.
The products were pushed in a panic for a relatively mild virus that had a median infection fatality rate comparable to influenza at 0.07 percent for people aged under 70, study here.
The Morrison Government’s vaccine policy from 2020 stated that the TGA had responsibility for the safety monitoring of the covid gene-vaccines and that it would launch an investigation if it suspected a safety issue.
But no serious public investigation was ever launched into the safety of the covid gene-vaccines despite more than 144,000 injury reports and over 1000 reports of death to the Database of Adverse Event Notifications. That’s more than for all other vaccines in history combined.
The 2020 policy document also states that the Federal Government was responsible for: “selecting and purchasing vaccines”, and “formally accepting vaccines from suppliers and ensuring that they meet the required standards”.
Whether “responsible” means anything under law, as a court-enforceable reality, is now under the spotlight.
Most of the gene-vaccine injured and bereaved have been abandoned without any support from the government’s narrow and restrictive compensation scheme (now closed) that only recognised 10 injuries out of thousands of possible conditions caused by the novel products, six of which were for AstraZeneca.
Many of the injured face life-changing and debilitating conditions that doctors are unsure how to treat.
The mRNA products are still on the market despite calls from thousands of scientists and doctors worldwide to suspend their use on safety grounds, while factories have been built to produce more.
Every publicly released Delegate’s Overview for the covid gene-vaccines has had the individual Delegate names redacted under the personal-privacy exemption in the FOI Act.
Pfizer’s Delegate’s Overview for BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) used for initial provisional approval was published 11 January 2021, and released under FOI here.
AstraZeneca’s Delegate’s Overview for ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria) was published 28 January 2021, and released under FOI here.
Moderna’s Delegate’s Overview for mRNA-1273 (Spikevax) was never released under FOI.
Moderna has a “special relationship” with the Health Department, which suspended procurement rules for its taxpayer-funded $3 billion Melbourne factory, according to a report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
The Moderna contract lasts until 2032 with secret ongoing yearly costs to the taxpayer.
Health Department Secretary Brendan Murphy set aside normal procurement rules on 7 December 2021 for the Moderna factory on the grounds of “human health”, without any alternative requirements for how procurements would be conducted, unlike the Department of Industry Science and Resources, the ANAO report said.
The Health Department’s “special relationship” with Moderna, exempting it from normal procurement rules for their ongoing contract, continued to apply as of June 2025, the ANAO said.
Keep up to date with Dr Melissa McCann’s Substack here
See the court documents at the Covid Vax Class Action website here
The submissions can be read here.
All Substacks I write here are free and in the public interest. Please share everywhere and re-use, with a credit attribution: Alison Bevege / Letters From Australia, with a link if possible.
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Comments will be switched off as this is a court story and I’ve not enough time to moderate.
For more stories related to the Covid Vaccine Class Action, and the injured, see the links below.
