Peter
With regard to Col's point about the structure of corporations protect the directors (ignoring the conservative political mantra) . This is as I understand it only partially true.
It seems to me the the culprit(s) were those who ordered the the actions or refused/failed to make the appropriate safety practices.
In which case wouldn't it be a case of suing the originator and those who added to the problem under negligence as well as the company.

Slightly different situation. A boss I had told me to get a copy of a client's bankcard number and charge the client without his knowledge albeit for debts the client had incurred. Somewhere in the back of my mind I read that I could be prosecuted if I did (I could not claim immunity under what is called the Nuremberg defense) Isn't the Gunns case similar principle. If so then the fault was that the Gov.dept weren't able or didn't prove cause and effect that involved the directors i.e. direct line of responsibility.
Thanks

I’m going to Peter… write to Rudd, I am going to send him a huge file. I spent two years writing reports on this wee girl and documenting her little life. I printed out every e-mail even the ones at the end of her stay from caseworkers who were horrified at each other and themselves and the whole department. I have hundreds of photos. I have little notes from her mum and dad telling us how much they loved her that they snuck back in the bag from visits. He is going to get the lot.

I am also going to shamelessly steal all your words and send him the whole thread printed out. I am going to suggest he can’t say sorry to the stolen ones (sorry Huff) anyway, not until they stop doing it. Not only stealing them but then sending them on with huge dowry’s to NGO’s.

Yes you are right, of course I will be back to ask everyone exactly what I need to put in my letter at the end of the file.

I realise nothing has been done for the wee girl and I can’t go back, but it might help Kevin if he first looks at and understands who the little girl was before he gets to the end and finds out what was done to her. And done to our whole family really and the little ones who she had shared her life with while in our household.

OUG, I looked up the DoCS site and looked under complaints, DoCS are not allowed to talk to me about the complaint until the Ombudsman closes the case, and the Ombudsman office is saying they won’t close the case until DoCS has talked to me about it. Right now I need God.

contacting kevin is a move that must be carefully planned out,..i suggest setting out a brief..[no more than 3 pages]..that the brief should explain the problem..[as well as suggest what you feel is its cure]

understand that any leader has a flapper[usually a secretary of his secetary,that vets the mail,..then passes on the important issues, through eventually maybe to kevin

[more usually the file will be redirected by kevin secretary to the relivant dept..[who will summerise their appraisal and advice and pen a possable response]..handing kevin the problem[and the cure]at the same time

in short thats a lot of effort for perhaps little fruit[i understand kevin has the open parliment meetings arround australia,..at these its possable to actually meet briefly with keven and the relivant minester,..yet even there it will be handed off to the secetaries etc

at any-rate it is unwise to send the whole details in print[a 3 page letter..[preferably NEATLY hand written]..accompanied with a typed transcript..[and a cd rom containing the extra info..[in full]..is likely to get the best result,

sent to your local member,..the relitive dept head's..as well as kevin atourney general and ombudsman[perhaps even hrh liz]...the origonal letter addressing them all..[but none the origonal..[i would burn that with a prayer to god for his help]..wouldnt put his name on the letter however...

If you wish to make all individuals accountable, then you must make both employers, employees and the public at large accountable.

Say for instance an emplyee leaves something laying on the floor, knowing full well that it posses a risk to others, then someone else trips and falls and ends up in a wheel chair for the rest of their lives. Is that employee liable for damages?

Say a company director does a similar thing with the same outcome. Are they liable?

Say a shopper spills a drink in the center then watches someone else trip and fall, same outcome. Are they liable?

One of the reasons why corporations exist is to limit personal liabillity. It's a good thing, otherwise there would be very few people willing to take the risk of employing others or opening their doors for others to enjoy.

So many questions need answering. In all the cases cited the answer is yes. There used to be accountability and as a counter to that the insurance industry was built up. In 1936 a Queensland lawyer who became a Lord in the House of Lords, expanded the principle of the responsibility of everyone to his neighbour, in the famous Donohue v Stephenson case about a snail in a softdrink bottle.

What they call the corporate veil, the supposed immunity of the employees of a corporation was lifted by the Trade Practices Act 1974 as amended in 1995, and the Paul Keating’s government addressed all of the concerns you all have. He had not gotten around to reforming the government, and breaking the power of the States, but he was very close to it, and would have if elected again.

He passed all the legislation to make Judges and Magistrates accountable, but Howard refused to let this legislation be used. Howard stacked the High Court and encouraged the States to greater independence, and lack of accountability. He had an agenda and that was to take the carbon credits sequestred in farming land, and use it to balance Australian carbon debts. He could not do it directly, but the States which have all abolished their legal systems, did, and have. This was to benefit the coal industry, which generates most of our national wealth. This is the corporate State. The one thing they fear is the courts.

KR has not fixed that problem, but he has made some encouraging indications that he might. He has amended the Trade Practices Act 1974 to comply with Ch III Constitution by changing the capital letters on the word Court used in it, to the small letters used in the Constitution. All he really has to do now is accept that s 79 Constitution means that a court exercising federal jurisdiction, must have judges in them, not a Judge. Plural judges means that the ordinary people like you and me get to sit on a jury, with real power as in America, and here before 1970

It may be that the title of this thread, is a subliminal wish that Australia be like a republic. We cannot have just any republic though, because there is only one that has stood the test of time, and maybe two. The Republic of Ireland, which is really intimate with the Roman Catholic Church, has written the Trinity into its Constitution. So has the United States.

Instead of being the republic we got in 1900, by illegal legislation, enacted by the States, we have become nine Democratic Socialist Republics, and it is only a lack of will by Canberra, that is seeing this sorry state of affairs continue. We should have a Federal Supreme Court because that is what S 71 Constitution says, but in 1979, Fraser abolished it, and we have a High Court instead The only thing atheists fear is a court. It is supposed to have original jurisdiction, and be better than the American, so Menzies locked it up, like a monastery, in 1952. Atheists and secularists are delighted to see little Satan’s (demons) sitting as Judges and Magistrates in Australia. Agnostics do not know what they are missing, and the sleepy Christians have not yet woken up.

The central theme of good government is the Trinity. Muslims don’t have it, Buddhists don’t have it, the Chinese don’t have it, but Christians do. The English wrote the Trinity into their Constitution in 1215, and the law in 1297. The United States include it in theirs because the Trinity was what Jesus Christ taught; Father, Almighty God, Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. How did the English incorporate that into Government; by the Magna Carta and universal jury trial for Christians. That is what we had in our 1900 federal government. A Justice represents Almighty God, a jury Jesus Christ, and their verdict the Holy Spirit; Incorruptible, universal and just.

What we have now is not Justice but just us. Just us lawyers, owning slaves from cradle to grave, just as they did in Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Mao’s China. Judges and Magistrates as demonic slavemasters.