Ceremonial - Crennan J - Welcome Brisbane

[2006] HCATrans 338

[2006] HCATrans 338

H I G H   C O U R T   O F   A U S T R A L I A

SPECIAL SITTING  

WELCOME TO

THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE SUSAN MAREE CRENNAN

AT

BRISBANE

ON

MONDAY, 19 JUNE 2006, AT 1.56 PM

CRENNAN J

Speakers:

Mr Martin Daubney, SC, Vice-President, Bar Association of Queensland

Mr Rob Davis, President, Queensland Law Society

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

CRENNAN J:   Mr Daubney.

MR DAUBNEY:   May it please the Court.  In the unavoidable absence of the President, who regrets his inability to attend today, I have the sincere pleasure of welcoming your Honour on behalf of the Queensland Bar.

By my reckoning, this is the fifth ceremony of welcome which, as a Justice of the High Court, your Honour has enjoyed - I trust that is the apposite word - Canberra, for your swearing‑in on 8 November 2005, Sydney on 18 November, Melbourne on 16 December, Hobart on 21 March 2006 and now Brisbane.  Rumours that the entrepreneurial incumbent President of the Australian Bar Association is producing T‑shirts with your Honour’s tour dates are probably apocryphal, but one can never be sure.

Having sat through these welcoming ceremonies, your Honour is probably pretty familiar with the details of your life to date.  Just to catalogue your Honour’s career highlights requires a very deep breath indeed - jurist on this Court and before that on the Federal Court, distinguished silk, President of the Victorian Bar and, in 1995, of the Australian Bar Association, member of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Board member of the Victorian Legal Aid Commission, Senior Counsel Assisting the Tri‑Continental Royal Commission – the list goes on, and that is just your legal career.

Before your eminent legal career your Honour had two other professional careers, first as a trademark attorney and a second, after completing your Arts degree in English language and literature, as a teacher while your children were small.

But it is not just your legal qualifications and experience which equip you so well for the heavy responsibilities you have assumed as a member of this Court.  Your Honour has served many philanthropic organisations and you have a wide range of extra‑curial interests, including literature, music, travel, gardening and, most importantly, your family, who can be justifiably very proud of you and your achievements.

I cannot resuming my seat without responding to a challenge thrown down by the President of the New South Wales Bar at your Honour’s welcoming ceremony in Sydney when he said that his sources indicated that we would be attempting to prove that your Honour had been born in Queensland.  Your Honour will not experience that sort of parochialism here in Queensland, and, after all, we Queenslanders and Victorians have so much in common.  We are more than happy to send our rugby league team to Melbourne in a couple of weeks to have them thrash New South Wales in the final State of Origin game, just as we are happy to share in Victoria’s official religion by allowing the AFL Premiership to reside here as often as possible.

But, apart from that, my sources have revealed that your Honour is well on the way to official Queenslandership, having joined in the adopted habit of so many other émigré Victorians of holidaying from time to time in Noosa and Port Douglas.

Given your Honour’s well known facility in Old Norse, the language of the Vikings, it is appropriate that, on occasions like this, we adopt the word “welcome”, derived as it is from the old English word “wilcumian”.  It is an ancient greeting, described as a pleasant or hearty reception given to a person on arrival.  That is the greeting I have the honour of extending to you on behalf of the Queensland Bar, together with our very best wishes for your future years of service on this Court.  May it please the Court.

CRENNAN J:   Thank you, Mr Daubney.  Mr Davis.

MR DAVIS:   May it please the Court.  Your Honour, it is a pleasure to welcome you to your first sitting of the High Court of Australia in Brisbane on behalf of the Queensland Law Society and our nearly 7,000 members in this State.

There is no greater responsibility in our profession than an appointment to the High Court and the fact that your Honour is only the 45th Justice of the High Court in its 102 year history underlines the fundamentally important principle, the independence of the Court.

Your Honour’s distinguished record as a practitioner and a judge, just as importantly as an active, contributing member to the Australian community beyond the law confirms to us that you are not only a judge with impeccable legal credentials but a person with a genuine feeling for social justice issues, a sense of compassion that will provide a perspective to the making of difficult decisions.

The term “the loneliness of the long distance runner” is understood in its implications and I believe that, somewhat amended, it could apply to all judges, especially to Justices of the High Court.  After all, there is no higher court to review your decisions and while all judges and all courts weigh their decisions carefully and professionally, the task of the High Court is just that much more difficult.

There is no doubt that the High Court of Australia is one of the most distinguished courts in the common law and your Honour’s appointment to it must be a matter of great personal satisfaction.  We wish you well in this important role.

CRENNAN J:   Thank you, Mr Daubney and Mr Davis.

It is a very great pleasure to be in the State of Queensland and I thank you both for your generous remarks today and the expressions of goodwill from those you represent.

During the course of my practice as a barrister I met many members of the legal profession from Queensland.  During the course of constitutional cases I met Solicitor‑General Geoff Davies, QC, as he then was, when he appeared for Queensland.  He now serves on the Court of Appeal.  It was also during the course of similar work that I met first David Jackson, QC and Pat Keane, QC, also now a judge of the Court of Appeal, also Walter Sofronoff, QC, now Solicitor‑General for the State of Queensland.  It was during the strong and urbane leadership of the Australian Bar Association by the late Bob Douglas, QC, as he was, that I first became a member of the ABA Executive.  His untimely death was a great loss to the judiciary in this State.  I was also fortunate enough to meet his brother, James Douglas, QC, now a judge of the Supreme Court; Bob Gotterson, QC; Glenn Martin, SC, later president of the Queensland Bar Association, and now President of the Australian Bar Association; and Philip Hack, SC, now Deputy President of the AAT.

It needs to be said, I think, that both Glenn Martin, SC and Philip Hack, SC and also Dan O’Connor gave tremendous service to the Australian Bar Association over a number of years which included the time of my presidency of the Association.  Glenn Martin and Philip Hack gave a great deal of time and mind to the organisation of conferences, which facilitated proper national debate of the issues of the day.

It must also be mentioned that from time to time I was greatly assisted by instructing solicitors from Queensland, although they did have one minor fault, a great predilection to require an urgent conference when I was on holidays in this beautiful State.

All those Queensland friends and acquaintances who I have mentioned made me conscious of the outstanding traditions of advocacy and of legal service in this State.

On my appointment as a Federal Court judge I was then privileged to immediately deepen my acquaintance with Justices Jeffrey Spender, Susan Kiefel and John Dowsett, as well as the late Richard Cooper who then constituted the judges of the Queensland Registry.  Justice Cooper’s untimely death was another great blow to the judiciary in this State.

I must mention also that I am deeply conscious of the distinguished Queenslanders who have both led and served upon the High Court, all of them always retaining an unerring sense of the federal balance.  All Queenslanders are entitled to feel extremely proud of the contribution to the jurisprudence of Australia made by judges from this State.

Responsibilities of a High Court Justice are heavy, given that the Court is also the final Court of appeal in criminal and civil matters and determines disputes between citizens and government and between governments within our federal system.  Because judicial power must be exercised in accordance with judicial process, it is the final protector of the rights of citizens.  However, I look forward to discharging those heavy responsibilities, confident of the co‑operation and assistance of both branches of the legal profession of Queensland.

I thank you all for your attendance and support.

Adjourn the Court until 2.15.

AT 2.05 PM THE COURT ADJOURNED