Julian Knight made the claims to the ACT Supreme Court on Monday as he applied for an adjournment in his lawsuit against the Commonwealth over alleged abuse he suffered as a staff cadet at Duntroon.

Knight, who was kicked out of the military college after a brawl with senior cadets in which he stabbed a man, then went on a shooting rampage in the Melbourne suburb in 1987.

He is serving a life sentence in Victoria over the massacre that left seven dead and 19 wounded.

Last year, the case for compensation brought by Knight alleges he was assaulted by other cadets during bastardisation at Duntroon in 1987.

Knight alleges Duntroon's negligence as his employer caused personal injury, and he argues that the Commonwealth was responsible through a breach of its duty of care, vicarious liability and negligence.

Knight had been scheduled to make his closing submissions in the case on Monday, after it had been adjourned from May when the matter ran over time.

He had completed about half of his submissions when the matter was postponed, with the long delay to accommodate the barrister for the Commonwealth.

Knight, representing himself, asked for a further month to prepare his final arguments after he lost access to both electronic and hard copies of his work.

He said he had had limited access to computers he used to build his case since a pornographic movie had been located on the machine he used.

He also argued last month's prison riots in Victoria had further hampered his case.

Knight said he had been denied access to hard copies of his case since his transfer from Port Phillip Prison to Barwon Prison in mid-July.

The court heard he had spent some of the time since his transfer in solitary confinement.

Knight said prison authorities had made an offer to print his electronic files last Friday, but he rejected the proposal as they would not have been useful without the hard-copy material.

He said the printed copies would require him to start over.

"I simply don't have access to the materials required to complete submissions I was halfway through making in May," Knight said.

"Essentially everything has ground to a halt since I have had no access to materials."

But Associate Justice David Mossop dismissed the application for a further delay. He accepted Knight's difficulties, but said the case could continue to make use of court time available.

He ordered Knight to make whatever submissions he could and allowed to him to file further written submissions at a later date.

Associate Justice Mossop allowed the Commonwealth to make its final oral submissions.

The Commonwealth argued the case should be dismissed as an abuse of process as Knight had tried to use it as leverage to get a transfer to Canberra jail.

Knight declined to make oral submissions as he had no material at hand.

Associate Justice Mossop ordered Knight file written submissions within five weeks.