ALRC in the senate spotlight … Family Court PR machine challenged … Hobart chambers no guns policy … Latest Goings On with Theodora
She confirmed all six back office staff have been sacked and that she is considering having the Attorney General’s Department or the Federal Court do that work, while at the same time she denied there would be any “merger” of the commission with the department.
President Derrington said she is renting an apartment in Sydney at her own expense while she commutes to ALRC HQ from Brisbane, where she lives.
Soapy George Brandis gave her a dual appointment as a Federal Court judge and president of the ALRC, but the commission is paying her salary.
At the time of going to press the transcript had not yet been posted on the senate website, however we received an accurate summary from a local field agent:
There was this exchange between Labor Senator Louise Pratt and Derrington:
Field Marshal Molan was next up:
Senator Rex Patrick, a Xenophon leftover, was worried about airfares:
Pratt again:
Perth family law barrister Rod Hooper SC took up his pen and scribbled a missive, ticking-off The Australian’s ace legal affairs reporter Lois Lane, aka Nicola Berkovic.
Reflecting briefings from the Pascoe-Alstergren PR machine, Nicola had written in the May 23 edition of the newspaper that the sacking of Stephen Thackray as head of the Family Court appeals division was all down to Tip-Top Timbo’s desire for efficiency and to cut travel costs.
“… Thackray was sacked … as head of the appeal division by chief justice Pascoe, amid efforts to run it more efficiently, including by cutting travel costs …”
The court had been briefing media hacks that the appeals head had, on occasions, taken Mrs Thackray interstate when he was sitting on appeals and that the expenses were piling-up.
The extent of his efficiency could be gleaned from the detailed advice in his handover message he sent to Three Wigs Willy.
Thackray was a victim of the partisan war raging inside the inner sanctum of the Family Court with Tip-Top doing the government’s bidding and clearing the decks ahead of attorney general Porter’s family law “reform” announcement this week, which involves restructuring the Circus and Family courts and moving the appeals division to the Federal Court.
Anyway, Hooper SC spoke up on behalf of his fellow Western Australian:
Hello Ms Berkovic,
I write to correct an obvious error and personal slight contained in your article entitled ‘Family Court Judges bid to derail reform’ that appeared on page 6 of the May 23 edition of The Australian.
In your article you stated as follows:
‘Chief Judge Thackray – the head of the Family Court of Western Australia – was sacked as the head of the appeal division by Chief Justice Pascoe, amid efforts to run it more efficiently, including by cutting travel costs.’
In an article last week you made it plain that someone had leaked to you a memo from Chief Judge Thackray to judges Alstergren and Pascoe concerning the handover of responsibility for management of the appeal division of the Family Court of Australia.
A cursory reading of that memo should have made it plain to you that during the (short) time that Chief Judge Thackray had been in charge of the appeal division considerable advances had been made in the efficiency of the division including reductions in delays for hearings, delivery of judgments and in reduction in travel costs.
To suggest that the removal of Chief Judge Thackray was in any way linked to a desire to run the division more efficiently or reduce costs is simply wrong.
To suggest that Chief Judge Thackray is anything other than a judge who is committed to the efficient delivery of justice in family law matters borders on defamatory. If he does not sue you and your paper for this slight it will only be because he is not as thin skinned as some of his former colleagues.
In relation to the substantive issue of your article you appear to have missed the irony that the last time reform to the federal family law system was mooted it was derailed by a group of magistrates (now judges) who were under the leadership of then Chief Magistrate Pascoe.
Hopefully, and for the sake of the public who have a legitimate expectation that their matters will be dealt with by judges with the temperament and experience to deal with family law matters, the judges of the Family Court of Australia have learnt well from the example they were given.
Yours faithfully
Rod Hooper SC
Last week Theodora was concerned about the strength of a story that guns had been discovered in Hobart’s venerable Malthouse Chambers.
More details are fresh to hand and different sources are reporting that Andrew (‘Well Done Wayne’) Abbott SC believed that road works outside his home in leafy Sandy Bay might disturb the scopes on his collection of high powered weapons, so he stored them in a gun safe at chambers.
Some citizens might be concerned about firearms in the hands of barristers, but Abbott is an experienced shot and, as we know, feels he is more than capable of popping wood duck, native hens, sulphur crested cockatoos and bush possums at the Kingston Beach Golf Course, either on foot or from his Porsche Cayenne.
In 2010 he sought permission from the golf club and the acting police commissioner to clean up the wildlife at the Kingston Club.
Abbott told the acting chief copper:
“I intend to cull native hen, cockatoo, and possum with .22 calibre RWS subsonic ammunition, which I know to be accurate and effective in my bolt action Anschutz rifle. It is very short range and silent. The rifle has an illuminated Schmidt and Bender scope.”
He had earlier advised the president of the golf club that:
“The amount of duck and native hen excrement is a serious hazard to human health, namely to the health of the green staff, members and visitors; and the native hen interfere directly with play, by squawking and running across the line of puts and through the line of the swing.”
Despite his shooting skills, other Malthouse members were unimpressed and insisted the tax and commercial silk remove his weapons forthwith. So he did.
All of which pales into insignificance when we recall reports that Aziz Gregory Melick AO, RFD SC, had an M60 machine gun in his wine cellar.