Class action on COVID-19 jabs doomed to fail: defence

A lawsuit accusing the government of negligence in approving COVID-19 vaccines has no reasonable chance of success, a court has been told.

The class action filed with the Federal Court seeks damages on behalf of those who suffered "serious adverse events" as a result of taking one or more of the vaccines.

Pandemic-era health minister Greg Hunt is named as one of five respondents, as are former Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy and former deputy secretary for health products regulation John Skerritt.

The government is accused of being vicariously liable as a result of them acting on its behalf.

Among those listed as members in the lawsuit are Ian Lees, who claims his daughter died from vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia, and Michelle Grace Hunder, who says she was diagnosed with vaccine-induced pericarditis.

The respondents' barrister Kate Eastman SC told a hearing on Monday they were seeking to have the lawsuit thrown out on the basis it had no reasonable chance of succeeding.

"In our respectful submission, the pleading in its current form is just not capable of advancing to a final hearing in this court," she said.

The lawsuit claims the respondents owed the Australian public a duty of care, which they breached in approving the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines, Ms Eastman said.

"It is really a series of bold assertions and propositions that are expressed at a very high level of generality," she said.

"In effect, Your Honour, the members of the representative group in this proceeding are the whole of the Australian population."

Brisbane-based law firm NR Barbi Solicitor is representing the lead applicants in the claim, Anthony Leith Rose, Gareth O'Gradie and Antonio Derose.

In documents filed with the court, the applicants claimed they and others suffered serious adverse effects including hospitalisation, permanent injury and death after taking the vaccines.

They claimed the respondents knew prior to approving the vaccines that they were unsafe and carried risks that substantially outweighed the stated benefits of reducing the spread and severity of the virus.

As of September, around 1800 people had expressed an interest in registering as members in the lawsuit, according to the firm.

Justice Anna Katzmann said she had found it "incredibly difficult" to understand the nature of the claim, which the court heard was close to 1000 pages long.

A crowdfunding page is listed as having raised $558,535 from more than 1000 donors to finance the lawsuit.

The hearing continues.