Lawyers looking to sue the owners of the Covid-19-infected Ruby Princess cruise ship say compensation could run into the millions of dollars.
The ship is Australia's single biggest source of coronavirus with more than 600 cases and several deaths linked to the Ruby Princess.
In New Zealand, 16 cases of coronavirus are also connected to the cruise ship. It is now the subject of a criminal investigation and a potential lawsuit.
The cruise under investigation left Sydney on March 8 and arrived back one day earlier than scheduled on March 19, during which time a global pandemic was declared.
Shine lawyers is spearheading the class action against Carnival Cruises. Vicky Antzoulatos is a Practice Leader of Shine Lawyers' Class Actions department.
She told Checkpoint when sick passengers arrived on the previous cruise, those on the next cruise were not made aware, the ship was not properly cleaned and their fate was predetermined.
"They knew that on the previous cruise there were 160 people displaying symptoms consistent with Covid-19.
"With that knowledge in mind, it appears that [Carnival Cruises] didn't warn the passengers coming on. And if they had warned them that there was a chance they could get sick, there's no way those passengers would have boarded that cruise ship.
"They didn't (according to accounts we've heard from passengers) at any stage disclose to the passengers that there were people onboard the ship displaying flu-ike symptoms consistent with coronavirus.
"By doing that they didn't give people a chance to protect themselves," Antzoulatos said.
"They got on the ship, their fate was predetermined… They weren't given any opportunity to protect themselves or to not go on that cruise."
It is not yet known if the previous cruise with 160 people displaying symptoms had the same crew as the later cruise, she said, but the government has announced a criminal investigation into the events, which will provide answers.
"We understand that several days into the cruise some passengers reported to the ship's doctors that they were feeling unwell. So it was pretty early on."
But no link was made between flu-like symptoms some passengers were suffering and Covid-19, according to passengers' accounts.
The World Health Organisation had declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11, so passengers would have been aware of the seriousness of the spread, Antzoulatos said, but no one had given passengers an official warning against going on the cruise.
"In our view the buck stops with the cruise's owners and operators. They knew what the situation was at the time. They knew that the World Health organisation had declared Covid-19 as a global health emergency.
"And let's not forget their own other cruise ship the Diamond Princess had been quarantined off the Japanese coast for some time, with many cases of coronavirus on board. So they would have known the risks. And in our view, their duty was to inform oncoming passengers.
"Another thing that should be said is about the fact that they were the sick people on the previous cruise. Hours later they disembarked the passengers onto the new cruise.
"Given what we know about how long coronavirus lives on surfaces, it beggars belief that they had time to eradicate any virus that was on that ship."
Antzoulatos said Shine lawyers hopes to get moving quickly in its investigation. It has previous experience investigating Carnival Cruises for outbreaks of norovirus on the Ruby Princess.
"Nothing can ever compensate people for the loss of their loved ones. But companies like Carnival understand the payment of big amounts of money.
"That's what we would be hoping to achieve in any class action that's commenced. Compensation for the passengers and the loved ones they have lost in - adequate sums to compensate them for what they've been through."
