Tom-toms from Brisbane’s Bugle … A story without context … “ALP buddies on the bench” … Mix-master on top speed … The other side of politics even more culpable … Merit and the Old Mates Act 

Amazements never cease. Over a period of 16 years Labor governments have been putting family and friends on the bench – in “at least 17 plum roles”, said the papers’s beat-up merchant Peter Gleeson, known to his dearest as Gleeso. 

The hack had his hands on an “explosive dossier compiled by a senior member of the legal fraternity”. A lawyer with too much spare time has compiled a list of court appointments that had connections, remote and otherwise, to Labor figures, even people who were thanked by MPs in maiden speeches. 

A few anonymous sources stepped into the story. One said: 

“It’s not just relatives and friends … it’s much more subtle and surreptitious than that. 

“You’ve got Labor law firms, partners, employees, former associates. It’s a labyrinth of associations.”

The government points to its independent selection panel that filters candidates for the bench. Outgoing CJ Catherine Holmes and chief judge of the Dizzo, Brian Devereaux jointly said it was not unusual for judges, prior to their appointment, to have political involvements.

“We are quite confident that all the judges of our courts adhere to their oath of office, to administer equal justice to all and to discharge their responsibilities and duties according to law without fear or favour.”

So what’s the point of the story? (No need to answer that question.) 

In an attempt to explain things to the lip-moving readers of the rag, bar president Tom Sullivan explained: 

“The final decision on all appointments then ultimately sits with the government. The association believes that the Protocol for Judicial Appointments in Queensland, and the methods by which information is fed into the processes underlying the protocol, leads to merit-based and otherwise justified judicial appointments.” 

Indeed, attorney general Shannon Fentiman came out with exactly the same view: 

“… in 2016 the Palaszczuk Government introduced a robust policy for judicial appointments to make sure every appointment is based on the recommendations of a panel of independent professionals from each arm of the legal profession.” 

Gleeson wrote that Fentiman recently made “notorious former magistrate” Bernadette Callaghan head of the panel which plays a key role in the appointment of new magistrates. 

Callaghan is “notorious” because she infuriated victims of crime by allegedly handing out lenient sentences.

Another of Gleeson’s sinister connections is that former judge Ros Atkinson is chair of the Supreme Court appointments panel and young Fentiman had worked as Atkinson’s associate. 

It was also pointed out that Fentiman’s aunt, Kerry Magee, a magistrate, was appointed as a children’s magistrate.  

It’s hard to fathom why more judges and lawyers didn’t have conniptions reading the Bugle at breakfast. Some were furious not to be included in the list of comrades.

In the following day’s fish wraps, Gleeson was at it again, with the Mix Master set to top speed to generate maximum flummery. He raked back five years and came up with “shock proof”: 

“The Queensland Government is again at the centre of an integrity scandal after it dumped its much-trumpeted protocol for judicial appointments in 2017 and appointed three magistrates who had not been among a short list of 20 provided by a review panel.”

In the same year, the Coalition ignored the short list of eminent people from the arts and cultural community and instead put Vanessa Gutherie, the chair of the Minerals Council of Australia, on the board of the ABC. 

Justice Glenn Martin from the Queensland Supremes issued a statement as head of the judges’ trade union, the Australian Judicial Officers Association. 

HH pointed out that Gleeso lists 17 appointments, made over the last 20 years, and says that they show that the ‘Queensland Labor Party has been active within the State’s judiciary for more than two decades’. 

“He cites not one instance of any such activity. He provides nothing to support this slur on the independence of Queensland’s judicial officers. Indeed, he contradicts himself in the very last paragraph of his article where he says that no one suggests that these ‘Labor connections’ affected any judicial decision-making. He also makes no suggestion that any of the appointments were made other than on the merit of the appointee.”

What can you expect? This is the Courier-Mail and Peter Gleeson – a slurry of beat-ups, bombast and bias. 

“The support for, or affiliation with, a political party before appointment has never been a disqualification for judicial office in Australia. Sir Samuel Griffith, a giant of Australia’s early judiciary, had been Premier of Queensland before becoming Chief Justice.”

He could also have reminded the hack of Garfield Barwick, appointed High Court CJ by Menzies in 1964 and Nigel Bowen sent to the Federal Court as CJ by Malcolm Fraser in 1976. Both were Liberal Party parliamentarians. 

Then of course Bluto Carmody leapt from chief magistrate to chief justice of Queensland courtesy of Campbell (The Grub) Newman, with the specific expectation that he would restore “lawn order” and clean cup the bikies. 

Little Winston Howard posted his ideological chum Dicey Heydon to the High Court in 2003. 

Then there was lobbying by the IPA and Samual Griffith people in Melbourne to get have their pet candidate Simon Steward as the replacement for Geoffrey Nettle on the High Court. 

Not to mention the waves of Party dingbats appointed to the AAT by Bookshelves Brandis and the defrocked Christian.  

We found this interview from 2017 with Gleeson explaining how he got his job …