Ceremonial - Welcome to Nettle J - Melbourne

[2015] HCATrans 20

[2015] HCATrans 020

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 GEOFFREY NETTLE

AT

MELBOURNE

ON

FRIDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2015, AT 9.14 AM

NETTLE J

Speakers:

Mr James W.S. Peters, QC, Chair of the Victorian Bar Council

Ms Katie Miller, President of the Law Institute of Victoria

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

NETTLE J:   Mr Peters.

MR J.W.S. PETERS, QC:   May it please the Court.

Tuesday week ago, the High Court sat in Canberra to welcome your Honour as its newest member.  The esteem in which your Honour is held in the Commonwealth of Australia was reinforced by a list of those attending – former Chief Justices and Justices of the High Court; the Chief Justices of the Federal Court, Family Court and most of the State courts; numerous other judicial officers, especially from the Supreme Court of Victoria and the Court of Appeal; the Attorney‑General and Shadow Attorney‑General for the Commonwealth of Australia; the Solicitor‑General for the Commonwealth; the Speaker of the House of Representatives and many other distinguished guests.

The Victorian Bar is rightly proud that one of its finest jurists has been recognised in this way.

In fact, in all but one respect, your Honour has been guilty of unseemly haste in your career.  First Class Honours at the University of Melbourne and then at Oxford; partnership at Mallesons after five years; appointed Queen’s Counsel after 10 years at the Bar; and then excellence as a trial and appellate Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria.

In fact, as a Judge of the Court of Appeal, your Honour’s hallmark was excellence in all areas of the law.

Notwithstanding your Honour’s prodigious work ethic, you have enjoyed pursuits outside the law, including rowing in the First VIIIs at Wesley and Trinity Colleges; playing and later refereeing rugby union; and sailing and even the restoration of vintage motor cars.

But last Tuesday I heard your Honour enjoys Clint Eastwood movies.  That finally explained to me that steely gaze and slight squint as I was putting whatever point I had as badly as I could.

As a member of our Bar, your Honour was not only a leader, but also a great contributor.  You had three readers:  Michelle Gordon, now Justice Gordon of the Federal Court; Pamela Tate, now Justice of Appeal in our Court of Appeal; and Robert Hay, now of Senior Counsel.

You were also instrumental in setting up our continuous legal education program and the inaugural Chair of our Continuing Professional Development Committee. 

But, as your Honour noted in the High Court, that unseemly haste seemed to have failed you in one respect.  In fact, it was your Honour who mentioned that you are “the oldest ever appointee to this Court”.  You described the Commonwealth as perhaps picking a wild card but “capping the risk” given the retirement age of 70.  Your Honour’s self‑deprecation in this regard was characteristic, but unwarranted. 

The Commonwealth Attorney‑General, Senator Brandis, said at your swearing‑in that:  “Your selection was based on one criterion, and one criterion alone – your outstanding ability as a lawyer and as Judge”.  He described it as “a well‑deserved recognition of the exceptional legal skills you have demonstrated and developed over the course of a distinguished career in the law, and of the high esteem in which you are held as a Judge.”

This is a wonderful time for your Honour and your wife, Wendy, and children to whom you have graciously attributed much of the credit of your success.

The Commonwealth is indeed fortunate that it has gained another member of this Court of the highest calibre.

On behalf of the Victorian Bar, I wish your Honour every satisfaction in what will undoubtedly be outstanding and distinguished service as a Justice of this Court.

May it please the Court.

NETTLE J:   Ms Miller.

MS K. MILLER:   May it please the Court.

I appear on behalf of the Law Institute of Victoria and the solicitors of this State to join the Victorian Bar in congratulating your Honour on your appointment to this Court – and to express our pride, not only in the fact that your Honour is a Victorian, but also as a solicitor and partner in the major Melbourne law firm of Mallesons.

Your Honour joins an impressive group of lawyers who have achieved at the highest level as a solicitor and then in the judicial system.  That group includes Chief Justice French, who was a partner in his own law firm that later merged to become part of Deacons; and Justice Gummow, who was a partner at Allen, Allen & Hemsley.

Your Honour’s outstanding eminence in the law is evident, as Mr Peters remarked, from the very outset of your shift from Economics to Law some 40 years ago.

Albeit with some credits for your Economics degree, your Honour completed the four years Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Melbourne in two years and you were awarded a First Class Honours degree.

You went on a British Council Commonwealth Scholarship to Oxford, where you also earned the Bachelor of Civil Law degree, again with First Class Honours.  You were taught and examined by giants in their fields:  Sir Rupert Cross in Evidence; JHC Morris in Conflicts and Peter Birks in Restitution.

You served Articles at Mallesons with Peter Kelly – and achieved partnership in that firm after only five years.

You began reading with Hartley Hansen at the Bar and completed the bulk of your time with Kenneth Hayne. 

Ten years after signing the Bar roll, you took silk.  Robert Redlich, speaking on behalf of the Bar at your Honour’s 2002 welcome to the Victorian Supreme Court said this:  “There is a consensus amongst the Judges of the High Court – a somewhat unusual thing in itself – that your Honour has been one of the best advocates in recent times to appear in that Court.”

Shortly before your appointment to the Victorian Supreme Court, your Honour was Senior Counsel for the plaintiffs in the successful High Court challenge to the superannuation surcharge tax on judicial pensions.

Dear to the heart of your instructing solicitors, your Honour remained loyal to the small firms and sole practitioners who briefed you in your early days at the Bar.  Cheerfully you gave free and comprehensive advice over the phone.  When formally briefed, your fees to them were modest.  You recognised the importance of the legal profession in ensuring that everyone has access to justice and you took pro bono briefs, ensuring those whose cases had merit were not left without remedy.

At the Bar, your Honour’s practice had been mostly major commercial and equity matters, revenue law and what will no doubt be immensely useful on this Court, constitutional and administrative law.

Your practice at the Bar did not include criminal law, but you made up for that at the Supreme Court.  Your criminal law judicial colleagues described your Honour as having “embraced the Criminal Law with a passion”.  They describe your eminence in their field of special expertise as “far beyond mastery of the law and cases” – a quite “astonishing” “feeling for criminal law and cases”.

Your Honour’s work on the criminal appeal reforms and, more recently, on the civil appeal reforms has been described as “inspirational” and “as giving concrete expression to the proposed reforms” in the minutiae of the Practice Directions and Rules.

Your Honour has always been a “prodigious worker”.  In 10 and a half years on the Court of Appeal, your Honour did the work of two Judges of Appeal and also sat regularly in the Trial Division.

Your Honour is an outstanding appointment to this Court.

On behalf of the Law Institute of Victoria and the solicitors of this State, I congratulate your Honour and wish you continued distinguished service as a Judge, now in this Court.

May it please the Court.

NETTLE J:   Your Honours, ladies and gentlemen.

First, thank you, Mr Peters and Ms Miller, for the very kind remarks and eloquent observations which you have made.  Given, as Mr Peters has just said, that it is less than two weeks since I was welcomed to the Court in Canberra, one might have thought that I had already had more than my fair share of adulation.  Certainly, if that were not so before this morning there can be little doubt about it now.  Be that as it may, however, I am honoured and privileged to be welcomed by the Melbourne profession as you have welcomed me this morning.

Since I was sworn in I have been sitting as a member of the Full High Court in Canberra hearing a succession of three cases involving fine points of constitutional interpretation.  Thus, to come here today to Melbourne, to this slightly less rarefied atmosphere, albeit, of course, no less important issues, is in no sense an unwelcome respite.  More significantly, however, from my point of view it means that for the remainder of the day, at least, I shall once again be able to rely upon the very high standards of Melbourne counsel and solicitors, and draw on their assistance, as I have so often done before as a trial judge and Judge of Appeal.  With that in mind I look forward, too, to my role as one of the two Melbourne resident Judges of the Court, in which I shall be involved in a significant percentage of special leave, interlocutory and other applications in the Melbourne Registry, and thereby continue to deal with members of the Melbourne profession on a regular basis.

Your Honours, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your attendance here this morning and for welcoming me as you have done.

The Court will now adjourn to be reconstituted.

AT 9.25 AM THE MATTER WAS ADJOURNED