Making sense of a lawsuit accusing the government of negligence in approving COVID-19 vaccines would take the better part of a year, according to a judge considering whether to throw the case out.
The class action seeks damages on behalf of those who suffered “serious adverse events” as a result of taking one or more of the vaccines.
Pandemic-era health minister Greg Hunt is named as one of five respondents, as are former Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy and former deputy secretary for health products regulation John Skerritt.
The government is accused of being vicariously liable as a result of them acting on its behalf.
Justice Anna Katzmann told a Federal Court hearing on Monday she had found it “incredibly difficult” to understand the nature of the claim, which the court heard was close to 1000 pages long.
Finding specific alleged instances of negligence or malfeasance was like "trying to find a needle in a haystack”, she said.
"For anyone to get across this statement of claim properly would take the best part of a year," Justice Katzmann told the court.
"A year devoted to that exercise and nothing else."
In documents filed with the court, the applicants claimed they and others suffered serious adverse effects including hospitalisation, permanent injury and death after taking the vaccines.
They claimed the respondents knew prior to approving the vaccines that they were unsafe and carried risks that substantially outweighed the stated benefits of reducing the spread and severity of the virus.
The respondents are seeking to have the lawsuit thrown out on the basis it has no reasonable chance of succeeding, barrister Kate Eastman SC told the hearing.
Ms Eastman described the allegations as "scandalous", but said they lack specific facts demonstrating that those involved acted in bad faith.
"These are allegations of the most serious kind and they are expressed in no more than a generalised conclusion," she said.
"In our respectful submission, the pleading in its current form is just not capable of advancing to a final hearing in this court."
The respondents are also seeking the applicants be forced to pay $312,000 as security, for if the case goes ahead and they lose.
The lawsuit claims the respondents breached the duty of care they owed the Australian public in approving the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines.
Among those listed as members in the lawsuit are Ian Lees, who claims his daughter died from vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, and Michelle Grace Hunder, who says she was diagnosed with vaccine-induced pericarditis.
Brisbane-based law firm NR Barbi Solicitor is representing the lead applicants in the claim, Anthony Leith Rose, Gareth O'Gradie and Antonio Derose.
The applicants are asking the court to allow them to continue working with the defence to file an amended statement of claim, which would be the sixth time they have done so.
As of September, around 1800 people had expressed an interest in registering as members in the lawsuit, according to the firm, and a crowdfunding page is listed as having raised $558,535 from more than 1000 donors to finance the lawsuit.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.
