The Judicial Registrar held that category-based discovery is to be preferred over general discovery in complex group proceedings where the parties have substantially different views on relevance, as it front-loads debate on relevance and proportionality and reduces the risk of multiple rounds of disputes. The ruling addressed the interaction between discovery obligations and statutory privacy constraints under the Aged Care Act 1997 (Cth), accepting that reviewing documents for protected information increases the burden on the discovering party and is a relevant proportionality factor, but left unresolved the precise operation of s 542 of the Aged Care Act and whether court-ordered discovery alone can override the statutory restrictions absent individual consent. Discovery categories relating to group members' personal or medical information were narrowed to the representative plaintiff where consent from other group members had not been established, with liberty to apply if consent is later obtained.
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