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Thousands of former and serving Queensland police officers have 12 weeks to officially join a class action against COVID vaccine mandates – the second of its kind bankrolled by mining billionaire and conservative political hopeful Clive Palmer.
The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Queensland Police Service in setting a deadline for current and former officers and frontline staff to formally sign up to the class action if they want a slice of any future settlement.
Justice Frances Williams granted the QPS what is called in legal terms a “soft class closure order” to help determine the size of the class action and any potential payout.
The legal manoeuvre is often used in class actions to help determine a possible settlement before the parties head into mediation. It marks a significant procedural win for the police service.
Williams noted that mediation was the next logical step, and that a “settlement might be reached”.
Unless officers opt out, they will be bound by any settlement and unable to pursue similar or related action against the QPS. Similarly, unless officers formally sign up to the class action, there is a risk they will not receive compensation from any out-of-court settlement.
The class action, spearheaded by three plaintiffs, was launched in October 2024 against the police service’s COVID vaccine mandates.
It argues that the mandate issued by then-commissioner Katarina Carroll in September 2021 was coercive and “unlawful from the outset”. Some police officers were sacked, while others were suspended for not complying with the mandate.
It follows another Clive Palmer-backed class action against the vaccine mandates. The first class action, on behalf of police and ambulance paramedics, was successful, with Supreme Court Justice Glenn Martin ruling that COVID vaccine directives breached the human rights of some frontline workers.
Palmer said he had provided at least $2.5 million to support the first case.
Although Martin did not find that mandatory vaccinations were contrary to the Human Rights Act, he ruled that the directions were unlawful.
A pool of up to 18,987 current and former officers and staff who were employed by the QPS between September 7, 2021, and December 12, 2022, are eligible to join the current class action.
Those employees are divided into three groups under the lawsuit.
The first refused to get vaccinated and were either suspended or sacked from their job; the second, dubbed the “Vaccine Coercion Group”, only received a vaccine because of the mandate; and the third sought medical exemptions but were denied and then vaccinated.
Lawyers leading the class action said the registration process was premature because an estimate of the number of officers wanting to join could be made from employment records.
But the QPS argued that having a registration processwould “improve the prospects of a credible settlement offer being made, and also a rational settlement being achieved”.
“It is currently not known whether the group members in the Vaccine Coercion Group are in the tens, the hundreds, the thousands, or towards the ‘upper bound’ of 18,987. The proportionality should become clearer through the registration process,” Williams’ judgment reads.
The judge also ordered the QPS to inform all current and former staff employed during the relevant period of the deadline by email or post.
The class action lawyers are required to publish notices in News Corp newspapers to alert former QPS employees who cannot be reached by mail.
Officers and staff have until 4pm on September 18 to register for the class action, or opt out, through Sibley Lawyers.
The Queensland Police Service said it could not comment on current legal proceedings. Sibley Lawyers was approached for comment.
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