A Federal Court judge has slammed former senator Rod Culleton’s bid to reconsider his $200,000 debt to a Lester Group-linked entity.
A Federal Court judge has slammed former senator Rod Culleton’s bid to reconsider his $200,000 debt to a Lester Group-linked entity.
Mr Culleton sought to appeal against a court decision, in which he was found to have owed about $205,000 to Balwyn Nominees.
Balwyn Nominees is owned by Lester Group executive directors and brothers Adrian, Russell, and Stuart, an Australian Securities and Investments Commission document shows.
Federal Court of Australia judge David O’Callaghan dismissed Mr Culleton’s application on Wednesday, describing the action as “hopeless”.
Balwyn Nominees started legal proceedings against Mr Culleton, his wife Ionna, and Elite Grains – a company in which Mr Culleton was a director – in the District Court of Western Australia more than a decade ago.
Mr and Mrs Culleton unsuccessfully appealed the court decision in 2013, in which they were found to have owed $205,536.50 to Balwyn Nominees.
The matter was linked to a deal the Culletons signed with Balwyn Nominees for land in the Wheatbelt region in 2009.
Lester Group founder Dick Lester was listed as a director of Balwyn Nominees until sometime this year, ASIC documents show.
The Federal Court ordered that Mr Culleton’s estate be sequestrated, to transfer control of his assets to a trustee, in 2016.
Mr Culleton sought to challenge the 2016 court order, claiming he was denied procedural fairness and that the bankruptcy notice was not valid.
According to the judgment, Mr Culleton also claimed he could have proven his solvency if he was given an opportunity to get legal representation.
Justice O’Callaghan upheld the previous rulings, finding that Mr Culleton’s grounds of appeal were bound to fail.
“As counsel for the first respondent put it pithily in his opening submission: ‘In December 2016, Mr Culleton was made bankrupt. Since then, Mr Culleton has brought a multitude of proceedings for the purpose of challenging his bankruptcy. All have been unsuccessful’,” he said.
“For the reasons that follow, the application is hopeless and is to be dismissed.”
Balwyn Nominees’ counsel claimed Mr Culleton’s latest application was another misconceived attempt to overturn the 2016 sequestration order, the judgment read.
“That is an obvious abuse of process,” Justice O’Callaghan said.
“Mr Culleton contended, in his written submissions, that the ‘new evidence and arguments’ were those ‘regarding solvency, the validity of service, and the conduct of the 2016 hearing before Barker J, which were not previously adjudicated or could not have been raised earlier due to procedural constraints’.
“But that is simply not so. Each of these issues has been raised and determined before.
“The primary judge was correct to characterise the arguments as impermissible re-litigation which do not raise any new law or any new evidence, and that it was not open to Mr Culleton to bring a second application on the same or very similar or patched up similar facts.”
Justice O’Callaghan said, in his judgment, that none of Mr Culleton’s claims warranted reconsideration of the previous judge’s orders.
“If I may say so, with respect, the reasons of the primary judge are relevantly not attendant with any doubt at all,” he said.
“On the contrary, his Honour’s reasons are detailed, careful and comprehensive and they are self-evidently correct.
“Mr Culleton has had multiple opportunities to challenge his bankruptcy, and has failed each time.
“The court will not afford him yet another opportunity to re-hash the same grounds.”
Mr Culleton was elected as a senator for WA in 2016, representing One Nation.
He resigned from the party to sit as an independent in December 2016.
However, Mr Culleton’s seat shortly became vacant after he was found to be an undischarged bankrupt.
