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A university lecturer’s general protection application was thrown out by the Federal Circuit and Family Court, describing the statement of claim as a “huge manifesto” created to cause “maximum embarrassment”.
Former Monash University employee Dr Reuben Kirkham filed an unfair dismissal claim to the Fair Work Commission, alleging that he – a self-described “white”, “young”, “British”, “non-indigenous male”, “imputed with Conservative political beliefs” – was discriminated against by DEI policy.
The application was passed onto the Federal Circuit and Family Court and overseen by Judge Salvatore Vasta, who described Kirkham’s statement of claim as “a huge manifesto” “full of irrelevancy”.
Kirkham – who represented himself in the proceedings – was warned on two different occasions over the risk of self-litigation, with Vasta’s overall approach being: “My practice is to tell the litigants that there is no disadvantage to representing themselves, but neither is there an advantage.”
“I tell them that ‘because they are so deemed’, they cannot come to me later and say that they did not know what they had to do because they are self-represented.”
Despite the warnings, Kirkham pressed on with self-litigation, leading to Vasta raising several objections to his application, submissions, and statement of claim.
Vasta repeatedly raised objections with Kirkham’s non-compliance of Federal Court rules, asserting that his statement of claim “almost defies proper description” and “is set out as if it were an academic paper” and is “bereft of any particularisation of factual allegations”.
According to Vasta, the claim kicks off with a “rant” targeting Monash University, with Kirkham stating: “It might be apt to say that the university was practically farting contraventions here, there and everywhere, although the result is a lot more poisonous than a fleeting bad smell.”
This was referenced by Vasta as “puerile and childish” and failed to move the complaint forward in a meaningful way. Kirkham addressed the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and its lack of support, claiming the union “has been promoting attacks on intellectual freedom, especially against individuals with gender critical views such as myself”.
The Fair Work Commission itself caught flak from Kirkham as he touched on “judicial activism” involving “scurrilous accusations about members of the judiciary whom he regards as being ‘left leaning’”.
Kirkham claimed that DEI policy is a discriminatory policy that contravenes the FW Act, resulting in him being a target of the policy. Based on these claims, Kirkham called for several remedies and contraventions against the alleged perpetrators.
Kirkham sought maximum penalties against all respondents, noting that “bankruptcy for an individual in many of these cases is an insufficient penalty, so anything above that does not impact the punitive character of the punishment”.
He claims this punishment is needed due to the respondent’s “grave assault on the public interest and fundamental values of a Western democratic society making it at the highest level of seriousness”.
On top of that, he called for the individual respondents to be stripped of their academic titles, and prohibition from exercising any public role ever again. Overall, he sought compensation and pecuniary penalties of more than $7.5 million.
Finally, Kirkham called for the courts to declare each of the individual respondents as a “corrupt public official”, reinstate and promote him to associate professor, and subsequently dismiss all DEI-appointed employees and all non-legitimate academic staff.
Abuse of the court
The court utilised “Federal Court Rules” to “facilitate the just resolution of disputes” as quickly and as inexpensively as possible. In reviewing the overall statements made in Kirkham’s claim, Vasta said: “The gist of his concerns is that the university has, by itself, and through the agency of the other respondents, embarked upon ‘woke’ policies in which ‘groupthink’ is the norm and any deviation from groupthink is not tolerated.”
“This extends to [DEI] policies where tokenism is the overriding factor in appointments, promotions and allocation of resources.”
In his own words, Kirkham claimed that the success of his case “would be a good start towards repairing the Australian university sector and restoring it to its former glory”.
According to Vasta: “It is obvious that this matter is a crusade for [Kirkham].” Acknowledging that Kirkham may have “a very legitimate gripe”, the Federal Court is not that forum to pursue or test such a gripe.
When reviewing Kirkham’s documents and their standing in the court, Vasta did not beat around the bush, lamenting his statement of claim as almost “impossible” to understand.
“The document does not have consecutively numbered paragraphs that each deal with a separate matter. Instead, there are many allegations rolled up in different paragraphs. There are references and ideas … that it is difficult, if not impossible, to know what aspect of the complaint is being dealt with in particular paragraphs,” said Vasta.
“The document is not brief. The sheer size of the document (173 pages) cannot be simply explained as existing ‘because there are so many contraventions’. The document is prolix.
“… During the course of the hearing, he (Kirkham) was verbose and rambling as well as being non-responsive to the issue at hand. This document mirrors [Kirkham’s] verbal approach.]”
“Despite [Kirkham’s] bravado and bluster, he is really only interested in revenge upon the university and those he feels have wronged him.”
“In summary, this document has not complied with any of the requirements needed for a proper statement of claim. On that basis alone, the striking out of the whole of the statement of claim would be justified.”
Vasta described the statement of claim as “scandalous”, with its priority being to “cause maximum embarrassment and prejudice to the university” – declaring that when the requested remedies are considered, it can be said that the purpose of the document was “an abuse of the processes of court”.
“Having come to those conclusions, the only proper course open to the court is to strike out the whole of the statement of claim,” said Vasta.
Kace O'Neill
Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.
