Tasmin Rose reports for The Guardian
New South Wales residents issued with invalid Covid fines have been warned they have just 21 days to make a claim for refund before the money is paid into the government’s unclaimed fund.
Revenue NSW has been contacting 33,000 people hit with the fines for public health order breaches during pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021 to inform them of the decision to cancel the penalties after a November court ruling.
The fines were withdrawn after government lawyers conceded that two test cases brought by the Redfern Legal Centre did not provide sufficient detail about the offence, which was a breach of the Fines Act.
Samantha Lee, a solicitor at Redfern Legal, said it was poor form for the government to make the retrieval process any longer or more challenging than it needed to be.
Read the full article here (20 December 2022).
