Bald Hills Wind Farm V Council (Supreme Court)-DAY 1 part one

A two-day hearing in the Supreme court began today, (June 10th), and under the coronavirus pandemic rules, it was conducted from Court 2 using zoom remote conferencing technology. Around 21 individuals “attended” the zoom trial. Jason Pizor QC represented Bald Hills Wind Farm, South Gippsland Council  was represented by Chris Horan QC, and 6 ratepayers were represented by Georgina Costello SC. Dominica Tannock of DST Legal-the legal firm that has been running a long campaign representing several local residents in South Gippsland in this matter of noise nuisance at the Wind Farm was also in attendance.

The press were represented by Nine News, Win News, and South Gippsland Voices Newspaper.

After initial delays in establishing the technology, the day flowed smoothly with the only technical hitch being when one lawyer forgot to unmute himself before he spoke. Luckily that was sorted out without the need for a break.

The case involves a judicial review of the two Council decision of March 27^th 2029, and April 24^th 2019 when South Gippsland Council found that a nuisance existed for certain residents located around the Bald Hills Wind Farm in South Gippsland.

First to speak was Jason Pizor QC on behalf of the Bald Hills Wind Farm. He was attempting to show and convince the Judge that the Council decision was tainted for both the March and April decisions on the grounds of “jurisdictional error”.

He then went on to elaborate the statutory requirement provisions of the law, the related factual background to the complaint, and the matters to be determined.

The statutory provisions related to the Public Health and Wellbeing Act surrounding the regulations applying to Councils, and particularly the section applying to nuisances and process Councils use to deal with such matters.

The next section was general lawyer chat around definitions of words and not needing to be spelt out in this article. Some case studies were mentioned but as they referenced documents held by the court officials, observers such as the press were not privy to the contents. It seemed like the QC was trying to show the Judge why the case should be determined in his favour by precedents from earlier cases. A list of points in earlier cases was purported to be relevant but the Judge suggested that the QC needed to show her in his summation that Council was actually mandated to perform the items on the list as part of its process. She seemed not convinced at this stage of the merit.

The QC then elaborated the sections of the various Acts that Council had to follow in this type of case and at one point the Judge asked him what Council is supposed to do when it finds a nuisance exists. This will be dealt with in summation with the earlier query.

Part two will be posted tomorrow.