Frost v Donovan

[2021] QCAT 154

QUEENSLAND CIVIL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

CITATION:

Frost v Donovan & Ors [2021] QCAT 154

PARTIES:

JULIE FROST

(applicant)

v

CHRISTOPHER DONOVAN

(first respondent)

SAMANTHA SANDERSON
(second respondent)

STEPHEN HAYNES
(third respondent)

STATE OF QUEENSLAND
(fourth respondent)

APPLICATION NO:

ADL040-19

MATTER TYPE:

Anti-discrimination matters

DELIVERED ON:

20 April 2021 (ex tempore)

HEARING DATE:

20 April 2021

HEARD AT:

Brisbane

DECISION OF:

Justice Daubney, President

ORDERS:

Pursuant to section 47 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), ADL040-19 is dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

HUMAN RIGHTS – DISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION – GROUNDS OF DISCRIMINATION – OTHER MATTERS – where applicant submitted complaint to then-Anti-Discrimination Commission – where complaint made wide-ranging allegations of victimisation or unlawful discrimination by respondents – where applicant has failed to articulate the scope of her complaint – where applicant has failed to put on evidence of her complaint – whether proceeding ought be struck out or dismissed – whether proceeding is frivolous, vexatious or misconceived, lacking in substance, or an abuse of process

Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld), s 141

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld), s 47

APPEARANCES & REPRESENTATION:

Applicant:

Self-represented

Respondents:

I Fraser (solicitor) i/b Office of the Queensland Police Service

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. This matter, ADL040-19, comes before the Tribunal today as a consequence of directions made by Member Fitzpatrick on 28 July 2020, by which the learned Member directed, amongst other things, that the Applicant, Ms Frost, show cause why her application ought not be struck out or dismissed pursuant to section 47 of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act2009 (Qld) (“QCAT Act”).

2. Member Fitzpatrick gave extensive reasons on 28 July 2020 by which she determined a number of then pending interlocutory applications, and made directions for the future progress of the matter, including for the determination as to whether the application ought be dismissed or struck out under section 47.

3. In Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons for decision, the learned Member undertook a very detailed and comprehensive overview of the history of the matter which has its genesis in complaints made by Ms Frost to the body now known as the Queensland Human Rights Commission (“QHRC”). Those complaints were made in a series of emails identified by Member Fitzpatrick which were sent between 29 January 2019 and 26 March 2019 by Ms Frost to the then Anti-Discrimination Commission.

4. As noted by Member Fitzpatrick, the Respondents to the present proceeding were advised by the Commission on 29 March 2019 that Ms Frost’s complaints had been accepted under s 141 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld) based on the matters set out in that catalogue of emails.

5. In her reasons given on 28 July 2020, Member Fitzpatrick sought to summarise the background facts which emerged from the emails. They included:

   (a)assertions by Ms Frost that she was sexually assaulted by Southport Watchhouse police in January 2012 by way of a reprisal for her having earlier made public interest disclosures (“PID”) about an alleged paedophile ring and child trafficking at a Gold Coast university;

   (b)assertions that she was knocked unconscious by police on a particular occasion and that there have been other attempts by police to seriously injure or kill her;

   (c)refusals of her requests for access to her QPRIME file;

   (d)allegations that one of the named Respondents, Inspector Sanderson, and the Queensland Police Service Right to Information Unit, had unlawfully obstructed information privacy releases; and

   (e)the making of an alleged public interest disclosure to, amongst others, the Premier of Queensland and the Crime and Corruption Commission.

6. As I have said, Member Fitzpatrick descended into some detail in her reasons concerning the allegations made by Ms Frost in that series of emails, and I respectfully adopt the recitation of those matters set out in Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons without repeating them at length.

7. As recorded in Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons on 28 July 2020, Ms Frost wrote to the Manager of Complaints at the Human Rights Commission asking that her complaints about the Queensland Police Service be put through in sections. She made a suggestion as to a way in which the complaints could be divided up, and asked whether one of the matters would go through for conciliation. Member Fitzpatrick then noted:

   The file referred from the QHRC [to QCAT] does not reveal any response from the Commission to Ms Frost’s requests in the 26 March 2019 email; however, it appears to have acted on Ms Frost’s request, because on 29 March 2019 the QHRC wrote to each of the respondents advising a complaint has been accepted under section 141 of the Anti-Discrimination Act1991 (Qld) and that the complaint is comprised of the emails from Ms Frost listed and summarised in the preceding paragraphs. The QHRC does not attempt to characterise the complaints or to say what part of the preceding emails constitute the accepted complaint.[1]

   [1]At [40] of Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons, 28 July 2020.

8. As Member Fitzpatrick pointed out, however, on 22 February 2019 the QHRC had emailed Ms Frost suggesting that it would be helpful if she articulated her complaints of PID reprisal by answering a number of questions. Member Fitzpatrick noted that she could not find any direct answer to those questions and concluded that she was therefore unsure what public interest disclosure the QHRC considered was on foot, which caused the reprisal forming part of the accepted complaint.

9. Member Fitzpatrick also noted that, outside the complaints made against the named Respondents, the emails from Ms Frost to the QHRC made allegations against many other people. Member Fitzpatrick noted that those complaints have also not been addressed by the QHRC in any way, saying:

   It is possible that the QHRC did not consider the matters raised amounted to a complaint which had to be either accepted or rejected by the Commission. That is, the purported complaint did not set out reasonably sufficient details to indicate an alleged contravention of the Act.[2]

   [2]At [45] of Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons, 28 July 2020.

10. Member Fitzpatrick went on to say that the difficulty was that:

    … so many matters have been raised by Ms Frost, it is hard to know where the QHRC may have drawn a line to include matters as an accepted complaint with respect to the named respondents and what falls outside that line.[3]

    [3]At [46] of Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons, 28 July 2020.

11. In respect of the process conducted in the procedure of the matter before this Tribunal, Member Fitzpatrick said:

    Ms Frost filed a “draft pleading” on 3 October 2019, attempting to address directions made on 5 September 2019. Those directions require Ms Frost to file a Statement of Contentions which set out the legal basis for her claim of discrimination, victimisation and public interest disclosure. Ms Frost’s draft pleading is difficult to understand. It references the emails to the QHRC.[4]

    [4]At [47] of Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons, 28 July 2020.

12. Member Fitzpatrick then summarised the response and the submissions that have been put on on behalf of the Respondents in respect of the asserted complaints that had been referred to the Tribunal by the QHRC. In short, the Respondents sought as best they could to identify what matters against what individuals were alleged by Ms Frost to be matters of victimisation or unlawful discrimination, and identified the manifest shortcomings not only in the identification by Ms Frost of those matters but in the absence of any substantiation for her allegations.

13. Member Fitzpatrick formed the view on the material before her as at 28 July 2020 that, as things presently stood at that time, there had not been a clear statement by Ms Frost of the complaints that she was making, sufficient to enable a hearing. On that basis and for that reason, Member Fitzpatrick directed that the Applicant, Ms Frost, should make submissions now to the Tribunal to demonstrate why her application should not be struck out on one of the grounds set out in section 47(1) of the QCAT Act.

14. I note in passing, although it is relevant to the submissions made today by Ms Frost, that Member Fitzpatrick in those same reasons for decision on 28 July 2020 dealt with a number of interlocutory matters that were then outstanding. One of those was an application by Ms Frost to join a number of other parties. Member Fitzpatrick found that the parties that Ms Frost sought to join went to matters which were outside the complaints that had been accepted for referral to this Tribunal by the QHRC. Accordingly, those parties were unnecessary for joinder as the matters asserted against them did not form part of the current subject complaints.

15. Member Fitzpatrick also dismissed an application that had been filed by Ms Frost for certain of the Respondents’ submissions to be struck out. That interlocutory application by Ms Frost was patently misconceived and was adjudged to be such by Member Fitzpatrick, and was therefore refused.

16. The other principal interlocutory matter dealt with by Member Fitzpatrick concerned Ms Frost’s complaints about disclosure and the application for production that had been filed by Ms Frost and which was the subject of directions made by Member Traves on 5 September 2019. Member Fitzpatrick succinctly summarised Ms Frost’s argument in relation to the need for disclosure in her reasons for decision saying:

    In essence, Ms Frost seeks documents which she says will provide evidence of her suspicion that incidents involving her, the police and medical practitioners, over many years, have been the result of reprisals and collusion to commit reprisals because of alleged public interest disclosures made by her. Ms Frost is seeking the names of persons involved in incidents involving her so that she may seek to join them as co-respondents and to provide particulars of her claim.[5]

    [5]At [87] of Member Fitzpatrick’s reasons, 28 July 2020.

17. Member Fitzpatrick analysed Ms Frost’s contentions and concluded that, in seeking the disclosure, Ms Frost was undertaking a fishing expedition which was not a permissible object of the disclosure provisions under the QCAT Act. So, the application for disclosure was refused.

18. That then leaves the question as to whether Ms Frost has articulated in any way a proper basis for the so-called complaints that she would seek to agitate before the Tribunal.

19. As already noted, to the extent that such complaints are able to be discerned, they can only be gleaned, at best, by an analysis of Ms Frost’s diffuse series of emails to the Anti-Discrimination Commission (as it then was). Ms Frost has been given repeated opportunities before this Tribunal to articulate in some sensible and comprehensible fashion precisely what complaints of anti-discrimination or victimisation she alleges specifically against which parties. It should not be the case that the Respondents have to guess what case is being brought against them. The onus is and remains on Ms Frost, and always has been on Ms Frost, to present a clear articulation of the allegations of victimisation or anti-discrimination that she asserts gives rise to her rights at law.

20. Even today in the course of her submissions, Ms Frost effectively conceded that without access to the documents about which she has been complaining, it is difficult for her to articulate the case that she would seek to advance. That amounts to a concession by her that she really has no evidence of the matters that she would seek to ventilate before the Tribunal.

21. The position then is that the Applicant, Ms Frost, has had repeated opportunities to articulate a case against the Respondents. Whilst making a variety of damaging assertions against a number of individuals, she has not in any way articulated any of the elements that she would need to establish if she were to have any prospect of proving a case of unlawful discrimination or reprisal against the named Respondents. At the very least, this proceeding in which Ms Frost is the Applicant lacks substance.

22. Given the significant defects that I have identified and that were identified by Member Fitzpatrick in her reasons for decision, the pursuit of ADL040-19 would be a pursuit of claims that are misconceived.

23. It is therefore appropriate to make an order under s 47 of the QCAT Act that ADL040-19 be dismissed.