Our Julian and house rules at the Ecuadorian embassy … The Tub goes to town … Brandis’ judicial appointments policy … Cunneen rallies support for the old empire, with help from Planet Janet
Justinian’s favourite UK gossip sheet, Popbitch, has a quaint little story about our beloved Julian Assange, who has made the Ecuadorian embassy in London his home.
Not for the first time Julian and the ambassador are having problems with the house rules.
The ambassador wants the long-term guest to keep his door open when in the company of female visitors.
Under the headline “Stinkyleaks” comes news that he’s also been banned from cooking with garlic or onions as the smell permeates the entire embassy and drives the ambassador bonkers.
The ruling is unhelpful for Julian’s favourite dish of spag bolognese, which he likes to serve to visiting devotees.
Popbitch also tells us that under the previous ambassador Assange had wandered out of his allocated zone and was caught snooping in rooms that are out-of-bounds. He was chased around the embassy with a broomstick by security.
Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, Tubby Callinan walks in.
Yes, the former High Court judge has been hand-picked by Troy-Boy Grant, the deputy premier of NSW, to review the liquor lock-out laws that are currently taking the heat out of Kings Cross and other pockets of the state.
Troy said that the 78-year-old Tub is a natural choice to “provide an independent, open and transparent assessment of the state’s liquor laws”.
“Mr Callinan is the right man for the job because he has a lifetime of experience leading evidence-based inquiries and exercising the independence of an official of the highest court in our country.”
The deputy premier emphasised that unlike many other official inquiries this one “does not have a foregone conclusion”.
Callinan has had a steady stream of work since leaving the High Court. In 2007 Little Johnny Howard asked him to investigate the outbreak of horse flu in Australia. In 2012 he got a gig reviewing the Crime and Misconduct Commission in Queensland. A year later he reported on the parole system in Victoria. In 2014 he was appointed chairman of the Commonwealth Bank’s independent review panel, looking at shonky financial advice to the bank’s customers.
Last year, the New Zealand government got Callinan to review a compensation claim by David Blain, whom the Privy Council found had been wrongfully convicted of murder. He reported this month with a finding that Blain did not meet the compensation threshold of “innocent beyond reasonable doubt”.
He’s also an ad hoc judge of the International Court of Justice for the Timor Leste v Australia proceedings and he gave evidence about Australian administrative law in the Hong Kong investor state dispute settlement case where Philip Morris unsuccessfully tried to get compensation for the cigarette plain packaging law.
The evidence-based Sydney drinking investigation will involve trawling through the desultory bars and clip joints of the Cross to explore the impact of the 1.30am lockout with 3am last drinks.
Callinan will be assisted by Brisbane silk Jonathan Horton, who is a liquor law guru and had been counsel assisting the Pink Batts Royal Commission.
The liquor sleuths will also be provided with feedback from a Safe and Vibrant Sydney Nightlife Roundtable.
The issue of the lockouts and 10pm closing for bottle shops has been contentious, with local grog purveyors and the liquor industry complaining about the impact on their profits and young boozers saying there’s no fun anymore.
Kings Cross is also busily being gentrified with many of the old gin joints being turned into apartments. The Crest Hotel and its Goldfish bar, a favourite watering hole of lags and crims, has been sold to a Chinese property group for redevelopment. Apartments have been snapped-up off-the-plan.
The Tub and Horton will find the place undergoing rapid change from a weekend vomitorium to what the French call a Bo-Bo environment -bourgeois bohemian.
Details of former justice Callinan’s educational qualifications are here.
Extracts from the Secret Diaries of the Hon. I.D.F Callinan are here.
The announcement and terms of reference for the Callinan review are here.
AG Soapy Brandis always puts in a commanding performance at senate estimates. This exchange a few weeks ago on equitable judicial appointments particularly caught our attention:
There was also a cheeky story in The Saturday Paper about fellow students seizing young Soapy when he was at the University of Queensland and placing in a stormwater drain with a heavy lid on top.
The article suggested that as a consequence the AG suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and, during his reign as first law officer law, graduates from UQ have fared poorly when it comes to federal judicial appointments.
All of which exasperated the other senators, who said they found it all rather “draining”.
Senator Collins was so infuriated with Soapy’s pedantry that she said:
“Your behaviour is outrageous. I really do not know how Mr Turnbull puts up with you.”
Talking of parliamentary proceedings, Greens MP Adam Bandt posted this little snap on Twitter.
There’ll be a massive queue to get into Margaret Cunneen’s speech to the Commonwealth Day celebrations at NSW parliament on March 14.
Commonwealth Day is the rebadged Empire Day and the 2016 theme for the 54 members nations clinging to the remnants of the old empire is “an inclusive commonwealth”.
Nonetheless, Margaret has chosen to speak about the victims of “the uncompromising neo-Puritanism that has engulfed our western society”.
The press release flagging the event says:
“She will challenge the guests and society in general to resist the moral guardians of the twitter sphere and the erosion of individual privacy.”
It’s all the fault of the “chattering classes”. Let’s hope Margaret’s number one fan, Rev Fred Nile, is there to lap it up.
It does seem that Margaret enjoys channelling Janet Albrechtsen, one of the house philosophers at The Australian.
In fact, the neo-puritan stuff is right out of Janet’s playbook. Here she is earlier this month with an article headlined “Neo-puritans strive to find offence – anywhere”.
“… it’s worth reflecting how the past month has provided a window into the mindset of a burgeoning class of sanctimonious neo-puritans.”
Apparently, critics of cricketer Chris Gayle’s on camera pick-up line and NRL player Mitchell Pearce’s frottage with a pooch are “neo-puritans” – even worse, “neo-naggers”.
In November 2012 Planet Janet was sticking-up for Cunneen’s friend and fellow QC enthusiast Jeffrey Phillips over his St John’s College address, which commenced by paying tribute to the “traditional custodians of this place, the Benedictines who came from the great English nation”.
You can hear a lot more of this if you get along to Ms Cunneen’s luncheon oration to the old Empire enthusiasts.
At the time of the over-heated bar election battle between the Neutrals and the Stables, in September and October last year, St Margaret was reheating Planet’s comments as part of her vote-winning strategy.
The complaints by Cunneen and others on her ticket about the bar council making pronouncements on social policy turned out to wildly inaccurate. Most of the comments had not been made by the bar – more’s the pity.
Never mind, it was only an election.