Thread by @Voice4Victoria

Final day of the NSW Supreme Court Case. Watch live here:

FYI they appear to be having technical issues with the livestream.

We are back and rolling. Commonwealth rep barrister Davidson now has the chance to respond (like Kirk did for NSW govt yesterday). King is the only case that's issued a Commonwealth challenge, so that's why she's only responding to his arguments.

Makes the point that King has attempted the sect 51 challenge submission multiple times now and has never been successful. This is not a good look for him.

Davdison "for that reason the constitutional argument must fail".
Judge casually responds yes.
This does NOT imply his final ruling, but probably not the best indication for King's argument there.

We're on to final statements. Harkess is up. Word of the day is vitiate.

What an argument. Harkess cites finding of Canadian SC in a case where an addict was taken advantage of by a dr & uses it to highlight that consent can be vitiated (broken) where advantage of the situation has been taken by one of the parties & how this impacts true consent.

"What is the power relationship between the parties here".
"Were the people going to be vaccinated truly in a position to make a free choice".

Questions the power of the state versus the weakness of the solitary citizen and if, then, the process could be considered exploitative.

Frustrating. Judge seems not to automatically grasp the difference between prospective job requirements being negotiated privately prior to someone being employed & the govt telling people "do this or your employer must make sure you lose your current way of paying your bills".

Worth mentioning by doing this he also ensures that every possible counter argument has been addressed. It is better for the quality of the process that the legal teams have the chance to counter any thought processes like that in court prior to a finding being made.

Back and forth between Harkess and judge on basis of challenge. Messy. Trying to fit that sect 109 debate breakdown in a tweet is impossible, but it didn't go super well for Harkess clarifying the judges queries on legal grounds which weren't necessarily invalid.

Harkess does have a solid point next claiming there's literally no proof to the public that, as Kirk claimed, the Minister 'agonised' over his decisions and their impact. That the only thing the public has seen is him being abusive to anyone who wouldn't follow the orders.

The technical legal minutia getting debated in this one is intense 🙃

King certainly running more coherently now than last week.

Judge really just letting him roll on this. King's academic interest seems to be coming out. He's just whipping through various references. Wondering if the judge is just letting this run & he'll read most of it later 😅 that's really the route my brain is heading.

King makes a point that supports Harkess that mandates should be going through Parl, as the UK plans to do on contemplating vx mandates for healthcare workers. Attacks Kirk's argument that the Minister is 'accountable to the public' says that isn't comparable to proper debate.

Interesting. King pulls out a joint scheme reference that says NSW/states are meant to run any changes to the rollout strategy (which obviously never mentions mandates) by the federal govt. That's new.

Lol at Davidson's facial expressions while King talks. She clearly doesn't agree.

And we're done for NSW. Now we play the waiting game while the judge goes away to make decisions. The complexity of judgements, which always list multiple references as to how they come to their final decisions, take time even if they're expidited (urgent) like this one is.

Best guess on ETA is Mon 18th Oct given the size of the cases, the number of judgements & how high the level of public scruitiny will be. This was roughly the timeframe for the curfew case & that was only one set of plantiffs, here there are two sets with multiple arguments.

Evaluating the mannerisms of the judge isn't always the best indication of how things will go as they go away & re-read the arguments & evidence from each side in depth, in peace, before writing the judgement. So now, we wait & watch VIC go up next.