Soames v Secretary, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT (REVISED FROM TRANSCRIPT) 1 The applicant has applied to me today ex parte as Duty Judge for leave to file an Interlocutory Application, which I shall mark as MFI-1, supported by an affidavit sworn by him on 22 January 2014. 2 The Interlocutory Application is not in a form which can be accepted by the Court. Nor is the supporting affidavit. Both documents contain scandalous material which is not relevant to the applicant's case. 3 Nonetheless, the applicant wishes to have an urgent final hearing of his case. For that reason, I have treated his oral application before me today as an application for expedition. For the applicant to succeed before me today, he would need to satisfy me that there was good reason to accelerate the timetabling of this proceeding in the period between today and the first return of the proceeding before the Docket Judge. 4 The applicant's Application, which is an appeal from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the AAT) pursuant to s 44 of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1974 (Cth), was filed on 16 January 2014 and has already been allocated to a Docket Judge. The Application is returnable at 9.30 am on 11 February 2014. 5 The issue before me today was whether I should bring forward in some way the hearing of the matter because of hardship which the applicant says he is enduring at the moment. Even if I were persuaded that the applicant had good reason and good grounds for such expedition (matters about which I have considerable doubt), there is little practical utility in endeavouring to expedite the matter at this stage when the first return date is so close. 6 In those circumstances, I propose to leave matters where they currently stand. It will, of course, be open to the applicant to make an appropriate application to the Docket Judge in due course for such expedition as he is able to persuade the Docket Judge he is entitled to. On that occasion, the respondent will be represented and I would expect that the respondent would also be in a position to make submissions on the question of expedition. 7 In addition, the present proceeding is the applicant's latest attempt in this Court to secure for himself the reinstatement of his disability support pension which was cancelled in March 2011 when Centrelink discovered that, before he left for a visit to Syria in August 2010, he had withdrawn over AUD1 million from a savings account controlled by him. In 2012, he made three applications to the AAT to have his pension reinstated. He has made at least two applications in this Court challenging those decisions made by the AAT. In the present proceeding, the applicant seeks to challenge the latest AAT decision which was given on 23 December 2013. As well as rejecting the applicant's latest attempt to overturn the Secretary's most recent decision, the AAT declared the applicant to be a vexatious litigant. 8 Thus, over the last two years, the applicant has had multiple opportunities to secure the reinstatement of his pension but has failed to achieve that outcome. While I have not formed a view about the applicant's present application, given the above circumstances, I see no reason to take any action at the present time. 9 For those reasons, I propose not to receive the Interlocutory Application, which I have marked as MFI-1. The applicant may take such course as he may be advised to make application for expedition before the Docket Judge. I will return to the applicant the Interlocutory Application marked MFI-1 together with the original affidavit sworn by him on 22 January 2014. The matter will therefore stand in the Docket Judge's list on 11 February 2014. I certify that the preceding nine (9) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment herein of the Honourable Justice Foster.