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It’s make or break for the landmark action after a judge ruled to give the applicants a final opportunity to make their case.

A Covid vaccine injury class action against the Australian Government has stalled, but is not over yet, after a judge denied the government’s request to dismiss the case last Thursday.

Thousands of Australians injured after their Covid vaccinations are enrolled in the landmark action, seeking compensation from the government for harms caused by alleged regulatory failures relating to Covid vaccine safety.

The Federal Government had sought to have the case dismissed on the basis that it had “no reasonable prospect” of proceeding, arguing that the lawsuit was “an abuse of process”, “contains scandalous material”, and could not prove that high-level government officials had a duty of care to the Australian population.

Further complicating matters, the class action got off to a rocky start, as the pleadings were found to be overly lengthy and unclear, resulting in multiple resubmissions, the most recent of which was prepared by Sydney Senior Counsel Mark Robinson, a specialist in administrative law.

However, Justice Anna Katzmann said in her decision that despite the “incoherent, unintelligible, ambiguous, impenetrable” nature of their submission, “I have decided to give the applicants one further opportunity to fix their pleading.”

Justice Katzmann ordered the applicants to pay 80% of the government’s costs for this part of the proceedings.

It is now make or break for the class action, which has offered one of the only legal avenues for Covid vaccine-injured Australians to seek accountability and compensation, as the government’s blanket indemnity protections to vaccine manufacturers prevent Australians from suing them for injuries directly.

As of 27 March 2025, there were 1,048 reported deaths and over 141,000 reported adverse events associated with the Covid vaccines, out of approximately 73 million doses administered. The TGA has indicated that approximately 15%, or 22,000 of the reported adverse events are classified as ‘serious.’

Whitsundays GP Dr Melissa McCann, who initiated the lawsuit, said after Justice Katzmann’s decision that she was “very grateful that we’ve been given this last opportunity to prepare and file a statement of claim that will be acceptable to the court.”

“My hope is for justice, recognition, and compensation for all those who have been harmed,” said Dr McCann, who took out personal loans to provide seed funding for the action.

The applicants will now essentially need to start from scratch to prepare new pleadings for the consideration of the court.

The Lawsuit

The Covid vaccine injury class action was filed in the Federal Court by Queensland law firm NR Barbi Solicitor in April 2023 on behalf of lead applicants Gareth O’Gradie, Antonio Derose, and Anthony Rose, all of whom allege that they were seriously injured by their Covid vaccinations.

O’Gradie, a Melbourne school teacher, developed severe pericarditis soon after receiving his first Pfizer vaccination in July 2021, leading to the removal of part of his heart, leaving 20cm scar on his chest, and affecting his ability to work, play sports, and participate in life.

Rose, a former construction worker and father of two, experienced incapacitating fatigue and debilitating neurological symptoms following his Moderna vaccination, rendering him unable to work.

Over two thousand other Covid vaccine-injured and families of the deceased have since joined the action as members, seeking to hold key government officials accountable and to receive compensation for damages and losses sustained.

Class action respondents include the Australian Government, former head of the Department of Health Professor Brendan Murphy, former head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) Adjunct Professor John Skerritt, former Health Minister Greg Hunt, and former Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly.

The suit alleges that the respondents approved the vaccines without the evidence or logical basis required “to reasonably determine the vaccines to be safe, effective and possessing a positive risk-benefit profile.”

The action argues that the TGA “did not fulfil their duty to properly regulate the Covid-19 vaccines, resulting in considerable harm and damage to Australians,” instructing solicitor Natalie Strijland from NR Barbi Solicitor said in a statement.

The lack of access to adequate compensation was the main impetus behind bringing the lawsuit said Dr McCann at the time of filing, calling the federal Covid vaccine injury compensation scheme “not fit for purpose.”

“Australians were promised a fair and accessible compensation scheme. Many vaccine-injured Australians who cannot access compensation through the Services Australia scheme now find themselves abandoned, with no support,” said Dr McCann.

Widely criticised for being too stringent and cumbersome, the federal compensation scheme closed in September last year, having paid out only $38.6 million (AUD) for 418 approved claims of 4,941 received. At the time, there were 1,057 claims still being processed — the remainder had been rejected or withdrawn.

A vocal critic of the scheme, scientist and co-founder of Covid vaccine injury advocacy group COVERSE, Dr Rado Faletič, said that due to “the absence of any appropriate government response to unprecedented pharmacovigilance failures and injuries,” legal class actions are the “only route” for the majority of Covid vaccine injured Australians who didn’t qualify for the now-defunct federal compensation program.

“If our government hadn’t abandoned our community so egregiously, then there would be no need for any legal action at all,” said Dr Faletič, who personally suffered injuries from his Pfizer Covid vaccinations, the effects of which he claims are ongoing.

Covid Vaccine Regulatory Failures

The Australian Government maintains that Covid vaccines are safe and effective, that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that the TGA conducts regular safety monitoring to ensure vaccine safety.

However, a growing list of concerns brings these claims into question.

At the outset, Australian officials mandated Covid vaccines on the majority of the population for work, travel, and access to some businesses and public venues, at a time when there were no data available for vaccine safety and effectiveness in certain populations, such as pregnant women or people with autoimmune disorders.

Though most mandates were enacted by state and territory governments, the Federal Government also supported mandatory vaccination.

The vaccines were approved “to prevent coronavirus disease” but evidently do not, meaning that they are effectively being used off-label, a fact that most Australians are unaware of.

Scientists and legal professionals allege that the mRNA Covid vaccines are not vaccines at all, but are in fact gene therapies containing unregulated GMOs. This allegation was the subject of a lawsuit that was thrown out of court last year, but has been recently been revived with a citizen petition to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Relatedly, independent scientists have repeatedly discovered high levels of synthetic DNA contamination in the mRNA shots, including a gene therapy sequence called the SV40 enhancer/promoter in the Pfizer batches, which was not disclosed to regulators prior to the approval process. Regulators have denied that the contamination poses any risk, but internal emails show that staff at the TGA privately acknowledge potential oncogenic and genotoxic risks.

The TGA claims to be closely monitoring reported adverse events, emphasising the rarity of Covid vaccine injuries. However, the TGA has no idea of the true rate of adverse events caused by the shots, because in most cases it does not attempt to determine whether a death or adverse event is causally linked to the vaccine, but rather assigns a causality status of “possible.”

Covid vaccine-injured Australians uniformly report that the TGA does no follow up on injury reports.

GP and former head of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) Dr Kerryn Phelps adds that the official adverse event figures are “a drop in the ocean compared to the number of actual adverse reactions that there are… because a lot of them aren’t being reported, because certainly in the early days, they weren’t being recognised.” Dr Phelps and her wife Jackie Stricker-Phelps both had the misfortune of sustaining serious injuries from their Pfizer vaccinations.

The Australian Government has initiated no efforts to follow up on injury reports, or to estimate the true rate of injury.

In Western Australia, which recorded near-zero Covid infections during 2021, the same year that 90% of the population was double-vaccinated, there was an “exponential increase” in reported adverse event rate, with Covid vaccines generating a 24 times greater reporting rate than all other vaccines combined. Vaccines have been taken off the market, including by Australia’s own TGA, for far less than this.

The TGA has not been monitoring cancer incidence in the format stipulated in the provisional approval conditions for the Covid mRNA vaccines. An FOI request (FOI 5275) seeking monthly cancer incidence surveillance data relating to the Pfizer vaccine rollout was denied by the TGA because the documents requested “do not exist.”

The TGA has said that cardiac arrest is not a safety signal for Covid vaccines, but the TGA’s own Proportional Reporting Ratio data on cardiac arrest shows that it is (from FOI 4032).

And, most egregiously, the TGA hid reported deaths of children after Covid vaccination from the public disclosure log for fear that “disclosure of the documents could undermine public confidence.”

This is by no means a comprehensive list of regulatory failures in the Australian Government’s approval and monitoring of Covid vaccines.

Injured and Bereaved Seek Accountability

To many of the injured and bereaved, the Covid vaccine injury class action is as much about righting wrongs as it is about the prospect of financial compensation.

Raelene Kennedy joined the class action to fight for recognition of the government’s role in the death of her 23-year-old daughter Caitlin Goetze, which she alleges was caused by Caitlin’s Pfizer vaccinations.

Caitlin was bedridden for four days after her second shot, developing severe shortness of breath and malaise in the following weeks. Six weeks later, she was found dead in her car at the Toowoomba horse racing stables where she worked. Caitlin’s autopsy showed myocarditis, a known side effect of mRNA vaccinations, but her death was attributed to asthma, despite no medical history of chronic asthma.

“I want to see accountability. I want the government to take responsibility for the immeasurable harm they’ve caused,” said Kennedy.

“Where there is risk, there must be choice. Cailtin had no choice, she had no informed consent.”

Music photographer Michelle Hunder, 46, who got pericarditis from her Pfizer vaccinations, said that for her, acknowledgment and accountability are more important than the money.

“The lack of acknowledgment is actually retraumatising over and over, and the lack of compensation is another retraumatising event,” said Hunder, who is enrolled as a member of the class action.

“I want there to be some type of historical record about what happened to us,” she said. “That’s the only thing that’s important to me now. It’s the principle, you know?”

However for some, compensation is very much needed, after the inability to work and mounting bills for treatments have drained their bank accounts.

Dr McCann recognised the need for both proper acknowledgement and financial restitution at the outset of the class action, stating at the time of filing, “respectful acknowledgement of these individuals with injuries and grief after vaccines is the first step towards helping them heal.”

“The second step is financial compensation, and I look forward to these allegations of negligence by the Therapeutic Goods Administration being heard and judged in a court of law.”

Around the World

To date, there have been no successful class actions brought against governments around the world over their approvals and regulation of the Covid vaccines.

At the same time, most countries granted blanket indemnity to the vaccine manufacturers as a condition of their vaccine purchase contracts, preventing citizens from suing the companies directly for injuries and deaths caused by their products.

Compensation is also notoriously difficult to qualify for, as the burden of proof rests with the injured party. The Telegraph recently reported that the UK has paid out more money to consultants to deny claims than it has to the injured, highlighting the impossible hurdles claimants must jump through to demonstrate that they are sufficiently disabled to qualify for compensation.

However, a new bill passed in South Korea last week promises to make it easier to access compensation for injuries and deaths associated with Covid vaccination, reports Korea JoongAng Daily.

Under the new legislation, the government will offer compensation to those affected by the side effects of vaccines, or the relatives of victims, if their symptoms are proven to have been caused by the vaccinations.

Most importantly, the burden of proof will be lowered so that compensation may be awarded in cases where the vaccination cannot be ruled out as a possible cause of the injury or death.

This is in contrast to the burden of proof imposed in most Covid vaccine injury claims around the world, which typically require that the injured party unequivocally prove the causal link between the vaccine and the injury, which is usually an impossibility unless a body of research already exists establishing strong safety signal and a specific causal mechanism.

While efforts grind on in the courts, calls for suspension of the Covid vaccines, particularly the mRNAs, are only increasing.

Meanwhile, only 3.6% of the estimated adult population in Australia is ‘up to date’ on their Covid vaccinations, according to recent government figures. Perhaps the other 96% figure it’s not a safe bet.

Readers wishing to donate to the crowdfund for the Covid vaccine injury class action can do so here.

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Republished with thanks to Dystopian Down Under. Image courtesy of Adobe.