The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has succeeded in a bid to strike out a court case over the cancellation of US transgender activist Monica Jones’ visa, and won a partial costs order.

Jones was previously stopped at Sydney airport in December 2014 and had her visa cancelled. She accused the immigration department of sharing information about her case with Channel Seven’s Border Security television show, and said they pressured her to appear on the program.

The department alleged she had breached her visa conditions on a previous trip to Australia.

On Tuesday judge Rolf Driver in the federal circuit court heard an application from Dutton’s counsel that the case be struck out because it had not been “prosecuted with due diligence”. No counsel appeared on behalf of Jones.

The immigration minister’s counsel said Jones had failed to take “any appropriate steps” to continue her case since the initial hearing. He said his attempts to contact Jones were “ultimately unsuccessful”. He sought a costs order of $6,000, a partial order of the $11,000 total costs incurred by the Commonwealth.

Judge Driver said the costs order was “not an attractive submission”, and he doubted there was any “practical possibility” of the recovery of the money.

The minister’s counsel said: “We simply say that we are entitled to costs because the proceedings have been brought”.

Driver said he was “mindful without any degree of enthusiasm to fix costs in the order of $5,000”.

He ruled the case should be dismissed on the basis Jones had failed to continue the case with due diligence, and a reduced costs order of $5,000 be made.