1. The House Contract Guarantee Act 1987 specifies a period of 28 days in which to appeal.

2. No appeal was undertaken within 28 days after receipt of notice of the decision.

3. Application was filed only on 27 August 1999.

4. Power exists under S. 126 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act to extend time.

5. No acceptable explanation existed or was given in evidence by the Applicant for the delay involved at least for the period from 12 July 1999 to 27 August 1999.

6. No occasion arose therefore or had arisen for a favourable exercise of discretion to extend time under S. 126.

7. In consequence, time not having been or being extended, the application was dismissed.

3. Mr Hill tells me that when Professor Cremean made his Order he objected to the course that the Professor took insofar as he said that the dismissal on the basis of a time limit against Housing Guarantee Fund Limited ought to bar the proceeding as far as Baylite Homes is concerned.

4. Professor Cremean apparently overruled that objection and made his order in the terms in which I have described.

5. Mr Hill now seeks a reinstatement of the proceeding so that he can pursue his claim against Baylite Homes. Mr New who appears on behalf of himself and his wife as Proprietors of Baylite Homes has opposed that course. He said that not only was this matter the subject of an adjudication by Professor Cream and the Domestic Building List but that in the course of 1999 it was the subject of an adjudication in the Civil Claims List of the Tribunal under the Small Claims Act 1973 in proceeding No. S9802202/00. He has provided me with copies of a number of orders made in that proceedings in the Civil Claims List. It was first considered on 11 January 1999 by Ms McBride. She adjourned the matter and directed that the Parties were to be on site with a representative of the Housing Industry Association and abide by his recommendations and the Respondent further agrees to do any work so recommended by 28 February 1999.

6. The matter was adjourned and came on for further hearing before a Mr Teh. Given that Mr Teh did not have the background on the matter which Ms McBride did, the matter was adjourned further for hearing before Ms McBride. I was not provided with a copy of the Order which Ms McBride made ultimately disposing of the matter, however, it appears that her adjudication followed the adjudication made by the Housing Guarantee Fund Limited as issued of the statutory guarantee.

7. Mr Hill says that all the matters he wants to press against Baylite Homes now were put before Ms McBride but she hadn't had them pressed upon her, determined it was preferably simply to go with the adjudication with the Housing Guarantee Fund Limited, and therefore she did not give proper consideration to the matters which were not considered by the Fund.

8. There seem to me to be formidable obstacles in the way of Mr Hill in pursuing this matter. First, the order made by Professor Cremean is clear in its terms. The proceeding was dismissed in total, not merely dismissed against Housing Guarantee Fund Limited. Mr Hill's description of this exchange with Professor Cremean indicate that Professor Cremean did not merely fail to make himself clear in the orders so that perhaps the order might be corrected if it were drawn to his attention that he dismissed the whole rather than half of the proceeding. It is clear that he intended to dismiss the whole of the proceedings.

9. What right then would I have to reopen an adjudication made by Professor Cremean? It is inherent in any system of the adjudication whether in a Court or Tribunal that once one Member has decided a matter, another member has no authority simply to revisit the matter even if that other member were satisfied that the first Member had gone wrong.

10. The only exceptions to that principal are that there is power under Section 148 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1987 where an aggrieved party to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court on the basis of error law by a presiding member of the Tribunal. Section 120 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal authorises one member of the Tribunal to re-open his own determination or the determination of another Member if the person aggrieved was not present at the time that the Order was made and is able to show reasonable cause for his/her or its absence.

11. There is no question of an application for leave to appeal here, and even if there were it would have to be made elsewhere. Mr Hill was present at the hearing before Professor Cremean. This proceeding has been concluded by the Order in which Professor Cremean has made. I have no power to revisit that.

12. This is an application of a doctrine which is summed up by a latin phrase "functus officio". What it means is that once the Tribunal has decided a matter once and concluded the proceeding, it cannot go back and do it a second time, or modify one that is already done subject only to the exceptions that I have already mentioned. Neither of those exceptions applies, and therefore I must dismiss this application.

13. It is perhaps unwise to go further than merely to adjudicate on what is specifically before, but I think I should say a little bit more by way of further observation.

14. Mr Hill says that he took legal advice from a well known Law Firm which advised him that he retained a right to prosecute a claim against Baylite Homes even if his claim against Housing Guarantee Fund Limited was to be regarded as concluded and incapable of resuscitation.

15. Mr Hill was unable to say whether the Law Firm advising him had considered or whether the claim against Baylite would be prosecuted in the same proceeding that Professor Cremean had already dismissed, or whether it would be necessary for Mr Hill to bring a new and separate proceeding against Mr and Mrs New, trading as Baylite Homes.

16. I should say something as to the latter option if Mr Hill has considered, it is not my role to provide him with legal advice but if it is the case that he put all of the matters that he now seeks to have adjudicated before Ms McBride, and received a determination from her I conceive that any new proceeding which he might bring might encounter difficulty as a result of the doctrines of issue astoppel res judicata or abuse of process.

17. Without descending to the details of those doctrines, what they are all saying in one form or another and as to one aspect or another of the legal system is that once a matter has been brought before a competent Court or Tribunal and determined on one occasion, it cannot be brought before the same or another Court or Tribunal again. It may be that Mr Hill might have had some ground for suggesting that there was an appealable error in the way in which his plan was disposed of in the Civil Claims List. I have no reason to think there was but I must allow for that as a possibility. If that were the case his remedy would have been to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court under Section 148 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1987.

18. This Tribunal has no power to simply revisit the matter. Under the circumstances therefore the proper Order to make here is that Mr Hill's application to reinstate his claim is dismissed.