Victoria Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes’ interference in a Fire Rescue Victoria union dispute was not “unlawful, unconscionable or illegitimate”, despite the AG overstepping her statutory authority, a judge has found.
Senior counsel for the banking royal commission Rowena Orr KC has been appointed as a judge on Victoria’s Court of Appeal, with class action silk Alistair Pound appointed to fill her shoes as the state’s solicitor-general.
The High Court has struck down a Victorian tax on electric cars, finding the state usurped powers held only by the federal government.
A judge has made the “regrettable” call to postpone the trial in a case brought by workers challenging the Victorian government’s COVID-19 health directions until after they expire, blaming the workers for creating a series of “fruitless” delays.
A group of 134 workers in healthcare, education and construction have argued a judge should grant them a temporary exemption from Victoria’s direction mandating essential employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 to work outside their homes.
Mining magnate Clive Palmer and two of his mining firms have lost a High Court challenge seeking to overturn a Western Australian law which prevented him from suing the state government for $30 billion over mining tenements in the Pilbara.
Victoria’s attorney-general has appointed star senior counsel for the banking royal commission, Rowena Orr QC, as the state’s highest legal adviser.
Lawyerly’s Litigation Firms of 2020 delivered significant victories for clients last year in bet-the-company matters, thriving in a tumultuous year that saw courts and litigants adapt to virtual trials and other new norms that are sure to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic.
Qantas has been hit with a test case to determine whether axing 2,000 ground staff and replacing them with “insecure” labour hire workers is unlawful.
Aircraft engineers for Qantas are challenging a ruling that the airline had no “genuine choice” when it stood them down in March during the COVID-19 pandemic.