Henderson v Taylor

[2006] QCA 393

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:	Henderson v Taylor, Information Commissioner of
Queensland [2006] QCA 393
PARTIES:	PAUL DAVID HENDERSON
(appellant/applicant)
v CATHI TAYLOR (AKA CATHERINE MARY TAYLOR), INFORMATION COMMISSIONER QUEENSLAND
(first respondent)
RACHEL ELIZABETH JEAN MOSS
(second respondent)
FILE NO/S:	Appeal No 3458 of 2006 SC No 6205 of 2005
DIVISION:	Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING:	Miscellaneous Application - Civil
ORIGINATING  COURT:	Supreme Court at Brisbane
DELIVERED EX
TEMPORE ON:	11 October 2006
DELIVERED AT:	Brisbane
HEARING DATE:	11 October 2006
JUDGES:	Mackenzie, Philippides and Philip McMurdo JJ Separate reasons for judgment of each member of the Court, each concurring as to the order made
ORDER:	Application for adjournment dismissed
CATCHWORDS:	APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – APPEAL – PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – QUEENSLAND – HEARING OF APPEAL – the appellant/applicant applies to vacate today’s date for the hearing of this appeal on a number of grounds – whether today’s date for the hearing of the appeal should be
vacated
COUNSEL:	The appellant/applicant appeared on his own behalf T J Bradley for the first respondent
SOLICITORS:	The appellant/applicant appeared on his own behalf Nicol Robinson Halletts for the first respondent

McMURDO J: The appellant applies to vacate today as the date

for the hearing of his appeal upon on a number of bases which

I can hope can be fairly summarised within these reasons.

One submission which he makes is that having regard to the

other matters which have been listed for hearing today,

relevant to his appeal, he has been in something of a state of

confusion as to whether he should prepare for the hearing of

this appeal today. And, as I understand what he has said, he

has been under some difficulty in preparing for the hearing of

the appeal. As to that argument it does not seem to me that

the other matters which have been listed today associated with

this appeal should have presented any difficulty for him,

either in knowing that he had to argue his appeal today or in

being ready to argue it.

The other arguments which he advances to vacate today as the

date for hearing, broadly speaking, concern his desire to make

further enquiries with a view to obtaining better evidence

than he was able to put before the learned primary judge. In

particular, he has identified two lines of enquiry. One of

them he says has been inspired by documents which he has

recently obtained from the Queensland Police Service and which

he has put before us. They consist of emails sent within the

Police Service relevant to the complaint made by the

respondent to this appeal of the event of the appellant going

to her house endeavouring to serve the originating application

upon her. He described this material, that is the recently

obtained emails from the Police Service, as being in the
nature of a 'smoking gun' and he says that has inspired him to

pursue further enquiries which he has not had time to pursue

in the last few weeks.

As I see that matter however, those inquiries must necessarily

be unproductive because they could only go to prove or further

prove a fact which is already clear and, which it appears to

me, was clear to the learned primary judge, which is that the

first respondent did complain to the Police Service of his

attempt to serve her with the application at her residence.

Moreover, it was already clear in my view that the essence of

that complaint, whether the complaint was justified or not,

was that there was something in the nature of stalking or

intimidation involved in the appellant's conduct.

That is a matter which does not seem to me to have been in

controversy in the hearing which is the subject of this appeal

and so there is no point in vacating today's hearing to enable

him to make that further enquiry. The other line of enquiry

he wishes to pursue, broadly speaking, concerns the

circumstances by which ultimately the hearing of his

application for contempt occurred as it did on the 30th of

March last. He complains that it should not have gone ahead

on that day. That is a complaint he put to the learned

primary judge. He asked for an adjournment on that date and

that adjournment was refused. His complaint, he should have

been given an adjournment, is a ground of this appeal.
That complaint which involves, of course, a challenge to the

exercise of a discretionary power, must be upon the basis of

the material which the learned primary Judge had. It does not

seem to me to be relevant for him to pursue that line of

enquiry as to how the matter was listed for the 30th of March

as it was. He is able to agitate that ground of appeal, of

not granting of an adjournment, within this appeal.

As I see it then, from the various matters which he has argued

both in writing and orally this morning, he has demonstrated

no good reason why the hearing of this appeal should not occur

today.

MACKENZIE J: I agree.

PHILIPPIDES J: I also agree.