NSW bar elections loom and Margaret Cunneen is out of the blocks early with a campaigning missive … Letter to members attacking bar leaders … Unheard of politicking … Council dysfunction … Vote for ME, I share your distress  

WAVES of amazement swept through Phillip Street this morning as briefs opened their inboxes to find a missive from aggrieved bar councillor Margaret Cunneen.  

Recently liberated by the High Court, Cunneen is now engaged in getting reelected to the bar council and this message is her conservative party manifesto for the forthcoming election, tapping into the ground-spring of resentments among some of the rank and file.

It’s quite clever because, in John Hyde Page fashion, she asks members who are sympathetic with her views to get in touch, thereby enabling her and her ticket to build a support base of email addresses.

Last time around she was part of the pro-QC ticket, a cause that has effectively fizzled to death as it will not receive parliamentary support to amend section 160 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act. 

New grievances have been assembled. Currently her main beef is that bar office holders have the temerity to put of press statements on issues of principle they feel are important. 

Some of them have been reheated from comments by uber right-wing columnist Janet (The Planet) Albrechtsen. 

In October last year the bar said that senior politicians need to be mindful about racial vilification when making comments that conflate wearing the niqab or burqa with terrorism.  

At the time various Coalition people were dog whistling about banning Islamic head coverings in parliament house – on security grounds.  

The charade latest about five minutes. Bronwyn Bishop and Senate president Stephen Parry wanted burqa and niqab wearers to sit in special glass boxes when viewing parliament. 

The loopy decision was made without any input from security agencies, and was soon reversed. 

Cunneen was upset that the bar’s statement described PM Abbott as “ill-informed and patronising”. The statement made no mention of the prime minister, simply referring to people in “leadership positions”. 

She was also incensed by a bar statement that responded to the then PM’s sniping at the Federal Court for blocking the Carmichael mine development on environmental grounds.   

Abbott said the court had been used to “sabotage” projects that “must” be favoured. 

The bar’s response was a perfectly legitimate defence of the judiciary and its function. 

Cunneen went on to complain that the bar had not defended another hero, Dyson Heydon, against applications that he disqualify himself from the trade union royal commission on the ground of apprehended bias. 

She also was cranky that a bar spokesperson told the Financial Review that many barristers have an attitude to the advancement of women that is “ignorant and offensive”. 

Then there was the association’s support of Gillian Triggs and the lawyers who acted for Man Haron Monis, which was not echoed in support of “other members of the association who, apparently, were not judged worthy of similar support” – i.e. What about ME? 

It’s all too much. This is “overtly ideological … a soap box for senior members of the bar council … imprudent”. 

The public credibility of the bar association and the profession is “disintegrating rapidly”. 

Forget cabinet solidarity and the internal governance processes, where these issues could be raised internally – this is election time. 

Now councillor Cunneen wants a media protocol to stop leaders of the bar unilaterally expressing “ideological and personal views”. 

This is not bad coming from a lawyer who has been adept at media relations. 

Last week, Cunneen penned a diary piece for whacko Tory magazine The Spectator, with cloying vignettes verging on the cringeworthy.  

She described the NSW parliament’s passage of legislation to restore ICAC’s previous findings, following the High Court decision, as “corrupt”.  

What is often forgotten, as she breezily sweeps over the allegations that ICAC made about an attempt to pervert the course of justice, is that we do not know the full story, the complexity of reasons why ICAC wanted an investigation, the basis of the information the agency possessed – and at this stage it seems unlikely we’ll never find out. 

She anoints those who supported her through the admittedly trying ICAC ordeal with awards for “valour and integrity”. 

Here’s the letter to bar members