You might think that the law is old, stodgy, stuck in the past and opposed to reform. It is all of that, of course, and a good thing too. Having those qualities makes for consistency and predictability and largely stops the lower orders getting ideas above their station, as if the law should be used to improve their lot in life. But one thing for which you cannot criticise the law is that it always finds new areas of work to do. In other words, it might be slow off the mark in most things, but it is quick off the mark in inventing new work for itself. If there is no new work floating around, the law or, rather, lawyers will invent it. Just look at the human rights, discrimination, environmental and refugee law rackets which are now gold mines that provide gainful employment for legions of lawyers who would otherwise be unemployed. And if there is ever any need for any actual law to be applied in any of those fields instead of the mush and mirrors that are their usual mainstay, the lawyers will just make it up, which shows an inventive turn of mind. Just look at the High Court and its remarkable ability to see things in the Constitution which are invisible to lesser mortals and its equal ability to close its eyes to other things that are obvious to the rest of us.

Anyway, one area of the law that has gained ground over the last few months, and a very good example of the coronavirus-like spread of its influence, is the rise of the class action. Stand anywhere near a class action lawyer who is sneezing or coughing and you are likely to pick up the class action virus sooner than say ‘Norman Swan’. And from the class action has sprung what I deem to be one of the most significant reforms to the law of my lifetime. It has all the ingredients of a great reform; it makes things more complicated, more expensive, longer to resolve and creates more problems than were there before the reform and it does nothing but line the pockets of the practitioners and the financiers who stand behind them. With qualities like that, how could it not succeed? And, putting behind me my natural modesty, I claim credit for giving this major piece of law reform its household name: the Round Robin. Here’s how it works.

First, you get a prominent member of the Labor party to make a speech in the parliament about some social ill that he or she has just discovered, although it has never been thought to be a problem in the previous several thousand years of human existence.

Preferably, the cause will centre on the halt, the maim and the blind, with a touch of indigenous, so-called First Nations issues, blacks, refugees, the handicapped, or one of the minorities that have become so prolific that they come close to making up a majority and, more recently, oppressed shareholders who have suffered at the hands of the fickle stock exchange and are looking for someone to blame. Then, paramount attention must be given to the optics as we call them, namely presenting things so that they look far worse than they are. Thus, the ultimate objective of the campaign, which is making money, should not be made known but, rather, should be hidden behind the homily that this case is being pursued solely as a matter of principle and to get the victims some closure.

Having covered the optics, the next step is to choose one of the class action law firms that are aligned with the Australian Labor Party. You can go through the tendering process of course, but the basic question will be, which firm will give the biggest kick-back to the Round Robin, and hence to the ALP. Fortunately, they all charge the same.

Then the paper war begins, the object of which is not to elucidate a single issue in the case or to deliver a skerrick of justice but to drive defendants to distraction, so that eventually they will settle. So, several months are devoted to the defendant spending none of its time on boring activities like making things, selling them, investing, employing people, providing services and paying taxes and all of its time on far more important activities like court pleadings, discovery of documents, interrogatories and all the other charms of litigation.

The costs mount up as time goes by and no expense is spared to make this a very expensive piece of litigation, so much so that the defendant is fixed with the hideous prospect that it might lose and have to pay those hefty costs itself. Eventually, there is a grudging settlement, just before the defendant drops from exhaustion. It is all dressed up as making a commercial settlement, but in reality the defendant gives up and pays up.

Naturally, most of the money recovered from the case in damages goes not to the litigants to assuage their injury and loss but is paid out as costs to the lawyers who brought the action. In many cases they run to millions. Moreover, a further proposal is mooted in that veritable hothouse of reform, the state of Victoria. Class action lawyers will soon be able to take a percentage of the damages as well as having their inflated costs paid.

Finally, the law firm makes a huge donation to the Labor party and the Round Robin is complete. The wrong suffered by the litigants has been turned into money that has been syphoned through lawyers and back to the ALP. No wonder they are such advocates for class actions. And lawyers thank heaven every night for fat, lazy Coalition governments who will do nothing about it, or about anything really, except spending money.