VCAT summarily dismisses COVID compensation claim over an officer’s authorisation

What happened

The applicant wrote to the Secretary to the Department of Health on 18 May 2025 asking for compensation under section 204 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 (Vic). That section allows a person who suffers loss because the Chief Health Officer gave an authorisation to an authorised officer to apply for compensation, if the person says there were insufficient grounds for giving that authorisation. An "authorised officer" is a person who can then use the public health risk powers and emergency powers in the Act, such as closing premises or restricting movement.

His letter pointed to a single authorisation made on 17 April 2020, which operated until 11 May 2020. At the time he wrote it he did not know the names of the officers covered by that authorisation, because the names had been redacted in documents released to him under freedom of information laws. He called the officer "John Doe #1". The ground he gave was that the virus had been made in a laboratory as a weapon of war and that the State had no constitutional power to deal with biological weapons. He later withdrew those contentions.

The Secretary refused the application on 24 June 2025 in a six page letter explaining why there were sufficient grounds for the authorisation. The applicant then asked VCAT to review that refusal on 12 July 2025. At a directions hearing the Department identified one of the officers named in the 17 April 2020 authorisation, and the applicant redirected his case to that officer, saying the officer had not been a government employee until that date, had been referred by an industry body, and should not have been given an unlimited authorisation.

The tribunal recorded that this was the eighth VCAT case reviewing a refusal of compensation under section 204 arising from the pandemic restrictions, and that three of the earlier cases had been brought by the same applicant and were summarily dismissed in 2024. The applicant never put a figure on his loss. Asked at the hearing, he described it in general terms as the loss of his job, buying face masks and other unspecified losses, and said he could not identify any direction made by that officer that had caused him any loss.

What each side wanted

The Department asked VCAT to throw the case out early under section 75 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 (Vic), on three bases: that the applicant had no standing because he had not shown he was a person who suffered loss; that the threshold legal question, whether the Chief Health Officer had insufficient grounds for the 17 April 2020 authorisation, had already been answered against applicants in earlier cases on the same evidence; and that some of his grounds were misconceived. The applicant accepted the earlier decisions were not clearly wrong in their general findings, but argued his case raised a narrower question that had never been decided, namely whether there was an adequate individual basis for giving this particular officer an unlimited authorisation. On standing, he argued section 204(1) does not require loss to be quantified at the application stage, and that it was enough at this point to assert a causal link, with the detail to come at a final hearing.

What the tribunal decided

The order was short. Under section 75 of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 (Vic), the application was summarily dismissed. No money was ordered to be paid either way and no deadlines were set.

The tribunal dismissed the case on two separate grounds, each of which it said was enough on its own: that there was no realistic prospect of the applicant showing insufficient grounds for the authorisation, and that he had not shown he was a person entitled to apply for compensation at all. It did not need to decide the Department's third argument, and noted those grounds had in any event been withdrawn.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

Section 75 lets VCAT dismiss a proceeding that is frivolous, vexatious, misconceived or lacking in substance, or an abuse of process. The tribunal applied the test from the earlier cases: the case must be obviously unsustainable in fact or law, can on no reasonable view justify relief, or must be bound to fail. The power is used with great care, only where it is very clear the case is "absolutely hopeless", and the party asking for dismissal carries the burden of showing that.

On the main issue, the tribunal explained that a section 204 review is not an ordinary merits review. VCAT cannot ask whether the Chief Health Officer's decision was the correct or preferable one. It can only decide, objectively, whether there were insufficient grounds for giving the authorisation, and if any one ground or combination of grounds was sufficient, the refusal of compensation stands. That could be shown if the authorisation failed the preconditions in sections 199 and 201 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act, was inconsistent with the Act's objectives and guiding principles, or was inconsistent with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. The applicant did not challenge that framework, and did not object to the Chief Health Officer's evidence from the earlier cases standing as the evidence here.

The tribunal found the earlier evidence covered this authorisation too. The Chief Health Officer had given evidence that he made every authorisation because he believed it was necessary to eliminate or reduce a serious risk to public health, that all of his authorisations were unlimited, and that he held that view across 2020. The fact that the officer in question was brought in from outside the Department for a pandemic role did not place his authorisation outside that evidence. The tribunal said it should follow the earlier decisions unless they were clearly wrong, that they were not, and that relitigating the same question would be fruitless. It noted the value of deciding like cases alike under the same statute.

On standing, the tribunal accepted the applicant's reading of section 204(1) in one respect: the section does not require a person to identify a specific direction made by an authorised officer. But it held that a person must still identify the basis of the claim with enough detail to show it is a real claim, not just a theory. Exact quantification can come later; the nature of the loss and its connection to the authorisation cannot. Here the applicant had named no loss, no amount and no action by the officer that touched him, and the tribunal described the claim as speculative and as "reverse engineering" a case built after the officer's name was disclosed. On that basis too, he was not a person who could apply under section 204(1), and the review was dismissed.

What this means if you are in a similar position

This decision shows how a tribunal treats a claim that repeats a question already decided on the same evidence. If you are in a similar position, the decision is a reminder that tribunals are reluctant to hear the same threshold issue again unless the earlier reasoning was clearly wrong, and that a slightly different fact, here the identity of one officer, is only a real point of difference if it falls outside the evidence the earlier cases relied on.

It also shows what a compensation claim under a statute has to contain to get off the ground. The tribunal drew a line between the amount of a loss, which can be worked out later, and the nature of the loss and how it connects to the decision complained of, which has to be stated up front. A claim written as a test of whether an official step was lawful, with the loss left to be filled in afterwards, was held not to be a claim the section allowed at all. The decision also marks out what the review could and could not look at: whether there were sufficient grounds for an authorisation, not whether the decisions made during the pandemic were the best ones.

If you are in a similar position with a government department or agency, the step most people take first is a clear written application or complaint to the decision maker that sets out what happened, what it cost you and what you are asking for, and only then an application to the tribunal or review body if the answer is a refusal.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a VCAT application. More decisions: VCAT cases and other civil disputes.

Source: Blewett v Secretary to the Department of Health [2026] VCAT 830 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.