Luke is the owner of The Port of Bourke Hotel, a local pub and restaurant in the small outback town of Bourke.
In 2019, the town was brought to its knees when a devastating drought swept through the region. Then the state-wide coronavirus lockdown began, forcing Luke to close down his business.
When he reopened in full compliance with the new public health mandates, one patron took exception to the rules and assaulted Luke with a glass bottle.
If that wasn’t enough, a few weeks later, undercover police traveled 374km to issue Luke TWO $5,000 coronavirus fines for allegedly failing to comply with the new health measures.
It was an outrageous sum, especially given that at the time, the closest recorded coronavirus case was over 500km away!
But thanks to the generous donations from our viewers to FightTheFines.com.au, we hired Luke an exceptional lawyer, to get those ridiculous fines dropped.
WATCH and SHARE Luke’s reaction to the news and hear how his lawyer, Mani Shishineh, got him off the hook.
Luke Moon was over the moon when he found out that a $10,000 burden was lifted off his shoulders.
Significantly, Magistrate Hamilton conceded that publicans are not authorized officers, so Luke didn’t have the legal power or authority to enforce covid rules in the first place.
It’s hard to believe that the police would be petty enough to drive nearly 400km to fine an outback pub. Are there no other crimes to investigate?
It cost us nearly as much to fight Luke’s tickets as it would have just to pay the fines ourselves — but that’s not the point.
Earning a legal victory against these authoritarian measures is much more important if we have any hope of pushing back against the government’s weaponization of public health measures against the Australian people.