As we all know now – and indeed suspected all along – the whole pandemic regime was moored in a thin tissue of lies. Worse than that was the rampaging hypocrisy. The same people who were sternly fingerwagging us to stay home and wear masks were repeatedly caught out sunbathing maskless, or nipping out during lockdown for a casual shag.
To compound it all, police and politicians, the very people entrusted to uphold the law, broke it flagrantly and without the slightest blush of embarrassment.
In New Zealand, the government acted unlawfully with its lockdowns for the first nine days. No matter: the government just waved its magic wand and duly declared itself within the law. No apologies made.
That’s not how democracies work.
Heavy-handed police in Victoria eventually withdrew 19,000 fines issued during lockdowns. Now, NSW is forced to follow suit, after a court ruled that over half of its fines were illegal.
The NSW government will withdraw more than 33,000 Covid-19 fines, after a Supreme Court ruling today.
Earlier today, Justice Dina Yehia SC found two fines for between $1,000 and $3,000, did not meet the requirements of section 20 under the Fines Act.
It’s only a partial win against the Covid dictators, though, as the case rests on the technical grounds that “the notices did not provide a sufficiently detailed description of the offence committed”. Which suggests that police were throwing around fines like confetti.
In a statement issued after the ruling, Revenue NSW confirmed it would withdraw 33,121 fines.
A total of 62,128 Covid-related infringements were issued in the state throughout the pandemic.
“Where fines are withdrawn, all sanctions, including driver licence restrictions or garnishee order activity will be stopped,” the statement read.
“Where a fine has been withdrawn and a customer has made a payment – either in part or in full – Revenue NSW will make contact to arrange a refund or credit the payment towards other outstanding debts.”
Adding to the suspicion that police were drunk on their power to issue fines, the lawyers representing the complainants, Brendan Beame and Teal Els, pointed out that hundreds of rubber-stamped fines were handed out.
Katherine Richardson SC, representing the duo, said more than 160 people had received an identical $3,000 fine as Ms Els, and more than 500 had fines with similar wording.
Ms Richardson said Ms Els had no idea what she was being fined for when she was approached by police while sitting in a park after exercising with her sister.
She should have gone to the beach and watched a friend take an illegal swim, instead.
In July, Rohan Pank had his fine dismissed for sitting on a park bench in August 2021, during Sydney’s lockdown.
All in all, the court ruling is knocking a nice little hole in the government’s nice little standover racket.
The total amount of fines issued during the lockdown amounted to more than $33 million according to Revenue NSW […]
Outside court, Redfern Legal Centre’s acting principal solicitor Samantha Lee said it was an “extraordinary” day for NSW.
“The state has conceded that the COVID fines brought to the court today are invalid,” she said […]
Ms Lee said the decisions today has the potential to invalidate all Covid-19 fines that were issued during the 2020 and 2021 lockdown.
ABC Australia
This is all well and good, but it still doesn’t address the fundamental problem that governments acted brutally and often illegally – and got away with it.
Yanking the fines isn’t good enough. We have to be sure this sort of authoritarian overreach never happens again.