A group of Territory business owners suing the NT Government and the Chief Health Officer over vaccine mandate laws have retained prominent lawyer Julian Burnside QC to lead their legal action, the group has announced.

United NT Businesses president Mario Tsirbas said the group was “pleased” and “honoured” to have Mr Burnside representing their members.

“United NT Businesses is honoured that a QC as qualified and respected as Julian Burnside has agreed to take our case on against the most racist, undemocratic and draconian laws our great Northern Territory has ever seen,” Mr Tsirbas said in a statement on Friday.

The group commenced legal action against the government last December, arguing the CHO’s directions around mandatory COVID-19 vaccines are an overreach of power, despite the government’s position that they reduce the impact of COVID-19.

The challenge is based on three NT workers, Ray Phillips, Conan Thomas Hammett and John Anstess who claimed they had lost employment due to the vaccine mandate orders.

In February, Mr Tsirbas revealed communications from the Solicitor for the NT which sought more time to respond to the lawsuit in order to “conduct extensive searches” of the government’s files in relation to the CHO directions – ultimately showing they weren’t prepared and needed more time, Mr Tsirbas said.

“There was no central briefing paper provided to the First Defendant (CHO) for the purpose of considering the making of Directions No. 55,” the email from the Solicitor for the NT stated.

Mr Tsirbas said at the time that the admission the CHO did not have a briefing paper before making the vaccination orders was troubling and called it a “Mickey Mouse situation”.

“How can the government and Michael Gunner stand up and say this is the best decision when they don’t even have a central brief of evidence to provide the Chief Health Officer to make this decision?” he said last month.

“How can a group of small businesses be prepared and ready to go [with the legal action] and yet the Solicitor General for the Northern Territory stands there and says, ‘I don’t know if I’ll be ready’?”

The Gunner Government this week introduced legislation to extend the CHO’s powers, including to mandate vaccines, for the next two years without a public health emergency declaration in place.

Mr Burnside is a renowned barrister and human rights and refugee advocate who practices mainly in commercial litigation, trade practices and administrative law.

He will be in Darwin on Monday March 28 for a directions hearing on the matter at the Supreme Court.