Generous terms offered to new federal courts personal manager … Stephen Gageler brings to life the turmoil at the High Court 112 years ago … Bar presidents go, bar presidents come 

The position is currently held under contract by Darrin Moy and it is expected he will slide into the job without too many distractions. 

Darrin is familiar with “people and culture” jobs, having been “general manager, people and culture” at Sydney Ferries, and before that the “director of people, strategy and community” at the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.  

Basically these are fancy titles for a human resources bureaucrat. 

The Federal Court contact person for this job application is Catherine Sullivan, now executive director of corporate services and, like Darrin, previously with the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. 

Closing date is Monday, May 15, so if you want a salary of $200,000, plus car allowance of $22,000, plus superannuation you’d better get cracking. 

The task ahead is to fine-tune the backend merger of the Federal Court, the Family Court, the Federal Circus Court, and the National Native Title Tribunal. 

These courts and the NNTT will “share corporate services, including people, culture and communications, information technology, finance as well as other functions”. 

They are looking for someone who can “shape strategic thinking … achieve results … cultivate productive working relationships … [and] communicate with influence”. 

Among the duties is responsibility for the courts’ style guide, protocols, communication guidelines, branding, and “media handling”.

Darrin set the standard for these requirements when he plagiarised a chunk of text from an article in the Qantas Magazine written by the airline’s CEO Alan Joyce. 

When Darrin was tackled about this he asked one of his “people”, how do we know that Alan Joyce didn’t lift his article from somewhere else? 

Melbourne University Law Review has published Justice Stephen Gageler’s paper about the great 1905 strike by the High Court.  

The judges refused to sit because Sir Josiah Symon, attorney general in the government of George (Yes-No) Reid, was complaining about judicial travel expenses and had refused money to be advanced for 300 feet of bookshelves to be installed in the Sydney chambers of chief justice Sir Samuel Griffith. 

In protest at these insults and at what was regarded as a threat to “judicial independence” Justice Richard O’Connor refused to sit in Melbourne to hear a civil case. 

The peripatetic activities of the court inflamed the attorney general, because the three High Court justices were racking-up big travel bills for the Commonwealth. 

A crisis had been brewing for some time and it came to a head in April 1905 when the attorney wrote to Griffith saying he was unable to consider that the three justices (Griffith, Barton and O’Connor) needed to be accompanied on their travels by tipstaves and associates and further he didn’t think that each judge needed to have a separate telephone in his chambers at Darlinghurst. 

He proposed that the Sydney registry of the court be allowed one phone and he directed that the other lines to disconnected at the end of the month. 

This showed some creative possibilities for use of the Constitution’s telephonic power to compel obedience to the executive. 

Symon had also arranged for his department to refuse to reimburse the judges for hotel expenses while they were sitting in Melbourne. He complained that the judges had used a steamship to travel between Sydney and Hobart, when they could have used railway passes for most of the journey. 

He told Griffith that the justices would probably prefer to pay the accounts of the steamship companies themselves. 

The scandal and the court’s “strike” got into the papers, and some of the cartoonists had a field day. 

It’s inconceivable that this would happen in the era of Attorney General George (Bookshelves) Brandis. 

At one point Yes-No Reid slapped down Griffith after the prime minister was asked to give assurances that the judges’ travelling expenses be regulated retrospectively and that the allowance be fixed by an order in council.  

Reid said the CJ should have written to the AG, adding: 

“… even if your telegram had been addressed to the proper minister, it would be impossible to overlook the peremptory terms in which compliance with your wishes is demanded.” 

The Examiner newspaper wrote: 

“The chief justice is disposed to be choleric and the attorney general assertive. The washing of judicial dirty linen in public is not seemly.” 

Symon’s position was that the High Court was based in Melbourne and should stay there unless it was in Sydney where it could hear New South Wales and Queensland cases. 

The conflict ended when George Reid resigned and was replaced by Alfred Deakin’s government. 

Isaac Isaacs became attorney general, who told Griffith that the Judiciary Act entrusted the entire question of High Court circuits to the judges. Steamship fares were to be met. Tippies and associates could travel with their judges , 300 yards of bookshelves were commissioned and travel expenses were to be capped at a daily amount of three guineas payable to each justice. 

The High Court never looked back. The brutal struggle for judicial independence had been won and Symon eventually retreated to the Adelaide bar. 

The custom was that presidents of the NSW Bar ‘n’ Grill got two one-year terms in office. 

However, Bathurst, Coles, Boulten and Needham had enough after 18 months. In other words, six months or so into their second term they were out of there. 

The most recent president Noel Hutley has followed in this new tradition, whereby six months is the new 12 months. 

He finished-up with a modest statement: 

“I have decided to step down as president after 18 months in the position. It has been an honour and pleasure to serve as both the vice president and as president of the bar council and I have enjoyed both the work and the dedication and collegiality of my fellow members of the bar council over that period. I wish you all well for the future.”  

No rousing declarations of great achievements or prospects for the glittering future. 

On Thursday’s (May 11) meeting of the bar council, everyone moved one notch up the greasy pole: 

Art Moses is now president; Timbo Game senior-vice; Chrissa Loukas junior vice; Andy Bell treasurer; and Sophie Callan hon. secretary. 

Bravo to everyone. Hoping to get a vision of the new president’s agenda we asked whether there would be a statement from Moses. By deadline we heard nothing – indicating that the clam-like traditions of the bar will be retained.