"24. ... If a security for costs application is properly brought we can see no reason for imposing any criterion upon the trial judge in respect of a notice to produce given to the other party by the applicant for security other than that, generally, the judge be satisfied that the documents the subject of the notice are specified with reasonable particularity and are properly being sought to advance the case to be put by the applicant. Of course, in determining whether a notice to produce should be set aside the Court will consider the relevance of the documents sought and the extent to which the notice might be fishing, vexatious, oppressive or inappropriate for any other reason. 25 Secondly, the notices to produce in the present case are simply not fishing at all, in the sense in which that term is used metaphorically in the law relating to discovery, interrogatories, subpoenas, notices to produce and other forms of compulsive interlocutory process, that is to say where '... a person who has no evidence that fish of a particular kind are in a pool desires to be at liberty to drag it for the purpose of finding whether there are any there or not.' (Associated Dominions Assurance Society Pty. Ltd. v. John Fairfax & Son Pty. Ltd. (1952) 72 WN(NSW) 250 at 254 per Owen J) 26 In the present case it can be safely assumed that the documents sought by the notices to produce in fact exist, they being standard financial documents which the law and proper accounting practice would require companies of any substance to generate. Likewise, as already mentioned, there can be no doubt that these documents contain information relevant to the issues which arise on a security for costs application. The only uncertainty is whether that information would help or hinder the security application. But unpredictability of response has never been a bar to the pursuit of relevant evidence, as many a hapless cross-examiner who received an unexpected answer will attest. 27 Thirdly, even if the notices to produce are properly to be regarded as fishing, that concept has undergone substantial rethinking in this Court in recent years. In a number of cases it has been pointed out that O15A r6 (discovery before action) expressly contemplates what once might have been castigated as fishing and that it would be incongruous if the power to order discovery were less extensive in favour of a party to a proceeding properly brought in the Court than in favour of someone unable for lack of evidence to mount a case: Caltex Refining Co. Pty. Ltd. v. AMWU (unreported, Full Court, 6 December 1990), Trade Practices Commission v. CC (New South Wales) Pty. Ltd. (1995) 58 FCR 426 at 436 (Lindgren J), Treasurer v. CanWest Global Communications Corp [1997] FCA 578 (Full Court), Microsoft Corporation v. Adelong Electronics Pty. Ltd. [1977] FCA 224 (Burchett J), Bertran v. Vanstone [1999] FCA 1753 at pars 18-23 (Kenny J), In the matter of Davison, Donnelly v. Davison [2000] FCA 1396 (Branson J). Also one should not lose sight of what the majority of the High Court in Grant v. Downs [1976] HCA 63; (1976) 135 CLR 674 at 685 noted as the public interest '... which requires that in the interests of a fair trial litigation should be conducted on the footing that all relevant documentary evidence is available.' 28 The applicants' suggested rule imposes a requirement that, to avoid the stigma of fishing, a party must already be in possession of some evidence before issuing a notice to produce (or, presumably, any other compulsive interlocutory process). But historically the concept of fishing was not concerned with the prior possession of evidence but rather that there was a prior pleading which raised issues for which the evidence sought by the process would be relevant. In Edward Bray's 'Principles and Practice of Discovery' (1885) - described by R.P. Meagher QC in the 1981 Foreward to a reprinted edition as 'the standard Victorian [era] masterpiece on the subject' - the learned author, speaking of the stage at which discovery can be required said (at 16, emphasis added): '... the right to discovery is limited to supporting a definite case set up, and does not extend to fishing out a case from the opponent; and therefore a party cannot have discovery before he has stated his case, whether in the claim as plaintiff or the defence as defendant.' 29 This principle underlies the common practice whereby a plaintiff who has no recollection of the accident issues a statement of claim alleging negligence by reason of excessive speed, failure to keep a proper lookout etc. The plaintiff then interrogates the defendant as to factual circumstances of the accident. The plaintiff may have no other evidence, and is plainly seeking to make out a case, but such interrogatories are not considered objectionable on the ground of fishing. 30 The substantive issue for present purposes is not the ultimate liability of the respondents but the question of security for costs. There are no pleadings as to that, but for practical purposes the issues on the security application have been raised in the correspondence between the parties. At the risk of tedious repetition, we note again that the documents sought are relevant to those issues."