Council’s heli fight ‘doomed’
Must pay operator’s costs
The Gold Coast Council’s legal action to try to shut down a local helicopter tour operator caused the company “serious and unjustified trouble and harassment”, was doomed to fail and should have been aborted in its infancy, a judge has ruled.
Planning and Environment Court judge Nicole Kefford ordered the council to pay Gold Coast Leisure Services, trading as Gold Coast Helitours, and owner and pilot Scott Menzies’ legal costs “on an indemnity basis” which is higher than standard costs from January to March this year.
She also ordered the council to pay their legal costs on a standard basis from when the case was filed in March last year until January this year after the council launched a bid to get an “enforcement order” forcing Gold Coast Leisure Services to “cease and not resume using the premises for air services”.
Her costs ruling came three weeks after she ruled in favour of the helitours company in a 134-page decision.
Judge Kefford rejected the council’s claim the helitours company’s expansion, including a floating two-storey terminal, cafe, office building and the use of another launch pad area was not a lawful use of the site.
“I am comfortably satisfied that the council’s proceeding lacked reasonable prospects of success from its inception; the council’s proceeding was productive of serious and unjustified trouble and harassment for Gold Coast Leisure Services Pty Ltd and Mr Menzies,”
Judge Kefford stated.
“Even though the council’s proceeding did not enjoy reasonable prospects of success from its inception, the fundamental difficulties with the council’s proceeding were brought into sharp focus on multiple occasions before the hearing commenced such that the council’s conduct in maintaining the proceedings became even more egregious.”
The decision did not reveal the amount Mr Menzies (pictured) and his company spent defending the council claim.
“Time after time in this proceeding the council was confronted with new material that highlighted serious inadequacies in its case,” she said.
“Instead, the council elected to ignore all the fundamental difficulties with its case and press on regardless.”
She said a costs order against council was appropriate “to compensate Gold Coast Leisure Services Pty Ltd and Mr Menzies for the unnecessary expense incurred in responding to the serious and unjustified trouble and harassment caused by the proceeding”.
Mr Menzies has been operating from the site next to SeaWorld since 1998.
Judge Kefford said the key council witness against Mr Menzies, Main Beach Association president Susan Donovan, “has a clear animus” against his business and ran an “organised campaign of complaints”.