In an act it compared to the ancient Greek myth of a man forced to roll a rock up a hill forever, a Queensland tribunal has ordered a company to make repair works on a pool that no longer exists.
It then stayed its own order, because the pool no longer exists.
Peter Roney KC, a member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, handed down a judgment in the case this week.
“Sisyphus would be proud,” the judgment begins.
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“I have been called upon to decide many outcomes in some strange and unusual circumstances whilst a member of this tribunal, but this case has its own special place,” Roney wrote.
The case was a challenge brought by the building firm Abel Gaspi Apolonia against what the tribunal said was an “almost incomprehensible” direction by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission relating to work done on a pool in Capalaba in 2021.
Part of the pool’s coping – a finish installed around the edges to stop leaking and prevent swimmers slipping – had had not been installed correctly and had sustained damage after heavy rain, the tribunal heard.
According to the judgment, the commission in 2024 directed the company that because “the installation of the copping (sic) has not been installed in an expected competent tradesman like manner” that “the non-structural defect falls Within 12 months of practical completion”.
But the tribunal said it was difficult to understand what work the commission wanted done and what the defect was.
The tribunal also said there was an even more fundamental problem: the pool had been removed in the meantime.
“After several hours of a hearing being conducted, using the resources of this state to determine what seemed to be an issue designed to protect a homeowner who had contracted for work on her pool, it was discovered, but only when the Commission checked, that the pool had ceased to exist for some years, and that the directive could not be given effect to in any way,” the judgment reads.
A lawyer acting for the QBCC submitted that the tribunal should still make a judgment, on the basis that it would be recorded on the builder’s licence history.
The tribunal handed down that judgment this week.
“To expect the resources of this state to be committed to making findings about the appropriateness of decision-making years earlier, in which has little or no practical significance, might be seen by many as a waste of public resources,” it reads.
“To decide the case anyway becomes an almost academic exercise. I will do so anyway. Sisyphus would be proud.”
The company argued that the pool was already old and defective before it was commissioned to work on it, that it made repairs that it had not been paid for and that the damage was caused by “excessive rainfall, soil movement, and the natural aging of the pool structure” rather than poor workmanship.
The tribunal ruled that the company had not repaired the coping as it said, and ordered that it rectify its work, but stayed its own order on the basis that it was impossible to carry out.
It then stayed its own order, because the pool no longer exists.
This report is published with credit to theguardian.com. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on theguardian.com →
Source: theguardian.com · Andrew Messenger. Published 4 Sept 2026, 03:00 pm.
