Great speech at the Free Willy show … Judicial appointment in the mail … Temple of Federal Justice on hold … ALRC family law recommendations and their political implications … A letter from Perth
The former president of the Law Society of NSW was appointed by the Christian Porter on March 11, as part of his flurry of elevations, pending what he assumed would be the passage of legislation for the his Temple of Family and Federal Justice.
Naturally, we thought that Uncle Doug’s (aka Captn. Mainwaring, aka Barry Dangerous) knowledge of military affairs and his experience on the Veteran’s Review Board were factors that the attorney general found attractive.
Indeed they were, but we also discover another possibility – the AG’s attention must surely have been grabbed by Barry’s swooning remarks in favour of the government’s court reform agenda and the leadership of the Family Court of Australia.
Justinian recently took possession of Barry’s speech at the ceremony on December 10 to welcome Chief Justice Willy Alstergren and his deputy Robert (Potato-Head) McClelland. He appeared on behalf of the Law Society, the LIV and the LCA.
It’s understandable that Willy, his deputy and the attorney general would be tickled pink by his remarks, when you consider that they include the following gleaming endorsements:
“Your Honours bring an enthusiasm and energy to a legal system that is in need of significant reform. This is a great foil to the negative nature of the general, but particularly current, debate in family law …
[snip]
Your Honours have not been afraid to take chances and be bold in the face of negativity, from some areas, to change, and media criticism, you were not perturbed. The results, which we have heard about, are there to see.
[Some structural problems, perhaps, with that sentence, but nonetheless a brilliant sentiment.]
The two of you will made a formidable team, one needed in these times of change.
Justinian McClelland … you do not shy away from a fight to establish much needed reform.
You bring the wisdom of being a leading politician, a great lawyer, a distinguished Commonwealth First Law Officer and a well-admired judge of this court …
[snip]
What some present might not know is that I went to the University of New South Wales with your Honour in the late 70s. I don’t believe anyone from our cohort was ever struck off – so it was a good year …
[snip]
This is a time for us all to band together to fix this system … Let me make it clear however, from the profession’s perspective, there will still be a need for superior court judges to hear complex family law matters at first instance …”
By this stage the attendees were eyeing the exit and the possibility of drinks, but Barry was not yet finished:
“These appointments are a line in the sand, a point in time to say, ‘enough is enough’. It is time for the court and the legal profession to put aside any differences and just get on with it.”
Well said judge.
Now we have the the ALRC saying that family law should return to the states, which rather spoiled Porter’s party.
The attorney general had been sitting on the report, knowing its contents, while insisting it had no implications for his court merger scheme.
He was pressuring cross-bench Senators to vote for the Bill, while withholding information that the landmark law reform review concluded merging the two courts was not the sensible way to proceed.
Shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus claimed that Porter refused to release the report, “because he has been misrepresenting its contents all along”.
“Mr Porter’s failed family court project has blown up in his face.”
WA family law barrister Rod Hooper SC nailed Porter’s duplicity in a letter this week to colleagues:
“The law reform review of the family law system has effectively found that the federal system should be changed to mirror the current WA system.
Governments have had advice about the superiority of the WA model since the Semple review was conducted in 2007-2008.
The separate review at that time about the Family Court of WA landed on the desk of the then WA attorney (Christian Porter) and just sat there and was never formally published.
I did, however, obtain a copy and have provided that to the attorney in more recent times in case he had left it behind or lost his copy when he moved to federal parliament.
Notwithstanding his WA roots and cant about what he does for the good citizens of WA, the attorney has done nothing to help family law litigants in WA.
In particular he continues the policy of previous governments, Labor and Liberal, to refuse to fund the de facto property jurisdiction of the Family Court of WA based upon the historical homophobia of John Howard, key members of the federal bureaucracy and of various attorneys (Williams, Ruddock, Brandis and now Porter) and their objections to WA allowing same sex couples to access the system.
This has continued even though same sex couples can now access the system at a federal level which is federally funded.
Further, having recognised (when state AG) the need to legislate at a federal level and accept referral of power to allow superannuation splitting orders to be made in relation to de facto couples in WA, the attorney has for years claimed that he is too busy to attend to the simple acceptance of a referral that the WA Parliament has already legislated for, and now says that this cannot be attended to until 2020.
That is without going into the petty games played by the Feds with the WA Court, about things like court accommodation (we do not have enough court rooms here, now because the Feds did not listen to advice and then recanted from arrangements) and IT system integration with federal courts.
His position is simply disingenuous. If he had spent more time dealing with the real needs of litigants and less pushing an ideological agenda and stacking the courts with people whose personal relationships with him and other Liberals seem to be an essential criteria, then this simple change could have been done.
Hopefully this entitled and dynastic canker in our system will be removed from the body politic of WA in five weeks time.”