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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 3503 ..

Debate resumed.

MR WOOD: Mr Humphries, if you want to justify this Bill you come to this Assembly and you tell us all the extent of the problem. Tell us how the courts are being blocked up or being disturbed in some way or other by vexatious litigants. You might convince us. But you have not tried. You have not said to us, "This is what is happening and the courts cannot deal with it". Until you can do that we are right to oppose this Bill. It seems to me that the Minister, the Government, wants the right to veto people's approaches to the courts, and I think that is grossly improper.

In question time today Mr Humphries expressed caution about approaching courts because of the separation of powers. Quite right, Mr Humphries, but tell me how this approach this afternoon aligns with that statement. You want to give yourself the right to argue in the court - it is not automatic, I concede - to veto someone's approach. In fact, this Bill is the "Gag Len Munday Bill". That is what it is, nothing more or less than that.

Mr Berry: Does he ever win in court?

MR WOOD: Well, it is interesting. Mr Humphries and the Government may see Mr Munday as a vexatious litigant, but the courts do not see him that way. Mr Munday has taken three or four cases to the Supreme Court, for example, and in all but half of those cases he has been successful. So the courts do not see him as vexatious.

Mr Stanhope: He will be again, I think, Mr Wood.

MR WOOD: As long as the Government continues its unreasonable approach to Mr Munday, he will use the protection afforded by the courts. Is he not entitled to do that? I am aware that there is perhaps one other person in Canberra who uses the courts to great extent. I do not know the details of that. Mr Humphries, if he wants to pursue this successfully in this chamber, must give us chapter and verse about what problems, if any, are caused by so-called vexatious litigants. I make it absolutely clear that this is the problem for Mr Humphries and for the Government. They are acutely embarrassed by what has happened with Mr Munday and they have put forward this gag measure. That is what this is about and it is a disgrace that we should even be contemplating it.

I wait for the day when the Government will treat Mr Munday as the decent, ordinary citizen that he is. Mr Munday is an agitated citizen. He has every right to be agitated because of the treatment he has received and the building up of resistance. I think Mr Munday has been treated very badly, in the first instance by bureaucrats and subsequently by government. I wait for the day when this Government will sit down with Mr Munday and talk to him and work the issues through so that he can resume a normal life. Mr Munday has been kicked enough and he says, "I'm not taking it anymore",

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