Gleeson CJ Welcome Brisbane CER

[1998] HCATrans 242

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 CHIEF JUSTICE ANTHONY MURRAY GLEESON, AC

AT

BRISBANE

ON

MONDAY, 22 JUNE 1998, AT 10.03 AM

GLEESON CJ

Also present on the Bench was Chief Justice de Jersey of the Supreme Court of Queensland

Speakers:

Mr J.S. Douglas, QC, Vice-President of the Queensland Bar Association

Mr S.S. Carter of the Queensland Law Society

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

GLEESON CJ:   Mr Douglas.

MR DOUGLAS:   If your Honour please.  Your Honour has been reminded recently that you are not the first Chief Justice of a State to become Chief Justice of Australia.  The first was Sir Samuel Griffith.  On behalf of the Bar Association of Queensland may I welcome you to Sir Samuel’s State of Origin.

Many people expected Sir Samuel Griffith would be appointed as Chief Justice of the High Court. As a leading figure in the Constitutional Convention debates in the early 1890s, a very significant contributor to the drafting of the Constitution and as Chief Justice of a colony he made a logical choice.

There was also an obvious logic in your Honour’s appointment to this high position, certainly among those who were familiar with your abilities.  The 95-year drought between Sir Samuel’s appointment and your Honour’s suggested, however, that the hopes of many for your appointment might remain unfulfilled.

The situation reminded me of some remarks in Sir Owen Dixon’s retirement speech.  The speech was chiefly notable for his Honour’s allocation of backhanded compliments to his predecessors.  It included, however, a poignant passage in which he described two tragedies in the life of the High Court, which did not depend on a particular event or a particular thing, but which just went on.  Those tragedies were the failures of the Commonwealth governments of the day to appoint either Sir Leo Cussen, who ended his career as Acting Chief Justice of Victoria, or Sir Frederick Jordan, a predecessor of yours as Chief Justice of New South Wales, to the Court.  We can all be grateful for the fact that the government was more discerning in your Honour’s case.

I first had the advantage of observing your Honour in action as a barrister in 1973 in the High Court’s old building in Darlinghurst.  It was another of your predecessors, Sir Harry Gibbs, who confirmed my early views of your ability.  You also appeared occasionally in the federal jurisdiction in Queensland, led members of this Association and appeared with and against us in the High Court.

You have given a characteristically incisive paper at a conference organised by our Association while you were Chief Justice of New South Wales and have given the closing address at one of our Bar Practice courses.

Unfortunately we cannot claim, as the Courier-Mail did about Justice Hayne, who was born in Gympie, that another Queensland judge had been appointed to the Court.  That failing of your Honour’s aside, it is a great pleasure to welcome you back to this State in your new role.  We hope to see you here often in the future.

GLEESON CJ:   Thank you, Mr Douglas.  Mr Carter.

MR CARTER:   Your Honour, welcome to Queensland and, on behalf of all Queensland solicitors, I congratulate you on your appointment as Chief Justice of the High Court.  I would first like to offer the very sincere apology of the President of the Law Society, Dr Jeff Mann who, while he arrived in the city this morning, has some illness that has prevented him from being here now and he very much regrets that.

I do not intend to try to add to the very just and very fulsome approval which your Honour’s appointment has been greeted with across Australia, but it seems appropriate to say that, in the view of the Queensland solicitors, you are clearly the right person for the job.

The unanimous support which has attended your appointment will serve this Court well following a period of significant change.  Change always carries the potential for division and, sometimes, for confusion, and change in the legal profession will certainly continue apace.

Your Honour has a history of good relations with the Queensland professions.  Justice Callinan has recently recalled the extent of your Honour’s contribution in a number of cases, stretching as far back as the Withers Inquiry in the 1970s.  You have also had direct involvement with the Queensland Law Society and your advice to the Society has always been relevant, prompt, crisp and accurate.  Your Honour has made a large contribution to your profession and to your country, and the solicitors branch of the Queensland profession is entirely confident that your service as Chief Justice will be beneficial and in the nation’s interest. 

My Society and the solicitors of Queensland are ready and willing to offer any support to this Court which you may seek.  I thank you.

GLEESON CJ:   Thank you, Mr Carter.  Mr Douglas and Mr Carter, your Honours, ladies and gentlemen.  May I begin by saying that I am honoured to be joined on the Bench this morning by Chief Justice de Jersey, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland.  He and I have had a long association and it is a particular pleasure that he has been able to attend this morning.  I thank you all for your welcome to me and for your good wishes.  Over my years in practice, and on the Bench, I have made many friends in the Queensland profession and the judiciary and I am delighted to be back in this beautiful city.

If I may take up Mr Douglas’ provocative reference to Sir Samuel Griffith’s state of origin, he was a Queenslander by adoption. He was born in Wales and spent a substantial part of his childhood and youth in New South Wales, where he was a distinguished classics scholar at Sydney University, but he made his home in Queensland and built up a busy legal practice here. He took an active role in public affairs and became Premier of Queensland. He was very closely involved in the movement for a federal union. At a public level, that involvement ceased when he was appointed Chief Justice of Queensland. It is of interest, however, to note that a number of provisions of the present Commonwealth Constitution appear to have their origin in a draft Constitution that was prepared by Sir Samuel Griffith for a proposed federation of Queensland provinces.

When the High Court was established in 1903, he was Chief Justice of what had become the State of Queensland and was appointed first Chief Justice of the High Court.  Soon after his appointment as first Chief Justice of the High Court, he became engaged in a very sharp controversy with the then federal Attorney‑General, Attorney‑General Simon, who was a South Australian.  Upon his appointment to the High Court, Sir Samuel Griffith, whilst he kept his home in Queensland, acquired some residential accommodation in Macquarie Street, Sydney, and the other two members of the High Court at the time, Justices Barton and O’Connor, were residents of Sydney.  But the principal registry of the High Court was in Melbourne, and Attorney‑General Simon took the view that the Commonwealth Government would not pay for the travelling expenses of members of the High Court when they went to sit in Melbourne.  Those expenses were not insubstantial in those days as they travelled by steamer.  Sir Samuel Griffith then announced that the High Court would not sit in Melbourne so long as the Commonwealth Government took that attitude.  He was accused by the Attorney‑General of leading a strike.

Of course, the issue behind that controversy was very important.  It was the question of who decides where the High Court sits, the executive or the judicial branch of government.  The issue was only resolved when the government of the day lost office and a Victorian became Attorney‑General.  He later became a Justice of the High Court himself, Sir Isaac Isaacs. 

Now, the headquarters of the High Court are in Canberra, but the Court has continued to adopt the practice of travelling to major centres and it has continued its practice of coming annually to sit in Brisbane.  That is how I come to be here today.  All the members of the High Court look forward to the Brisbane sittings of the Court and we are delighted to be amongst you.  I am especially honoured by your warm welcome.  Thank you.

The Court will adjourn to reconstitute.

AT 10.12 AM THE COURT ADJOURNED