The Bill Davidson story … Another chapter in the bankrupt barrister saga … Application to rejoin the jam roll rejected … Failure to come to grips with past “moral” lapses … Inability to manage income and tax … Janek Drevikovsky reporting
Bill Davison spent many years building his practice in environment and planning law. He became a star in the Parks & Gardens Court, and had a rollicking trade, earning over $600,000 a year.
There were ski trips to Aspen, two Mercedes-Benz in the driveway, and an astonishing cellar of vintage wines.
But Davison had problems – in the shape of the taxman. By the early ’90s, he was struggling to pay his yearly bill and in 1992 he went bankrupt, with the ATO as sole creditor.
For all these troubles, the bar council awarded him silk in 1994.
In 1997, his son committed suicide, plunging Davison into a deep depression.
By the turn of the century, things were not looking good. Between 1989 and 1999, he should have paid $1.5 million in tax on income of $3.5 million in that period. The ATO had seen less than a third of that amount.
Once more, Davison applied for bankruptcy, and this time he was prepared. The family home was in his wife’s name, as were the two Mercedes. Mrs Davo also did some typing work for her husband – no more than five hours a week – for which she was paid $5,000 a month.
There was also a “service” company, Comserv (No 1482) Pty Ltd, of which the lucky Mrs Davison was sole director. When questioned, she could not say what Comserv did, who its shareholders were, or when it last held an AGM.
Bankruptcy was duly ordered, and Bill’s wine collection went under the hammer for $45,163.
In 2001, there was yet another ATO investigation. Davison was questioned about why he had fallen three months behind in tax repayments.
He said the money wasn’t coming in fast enough to pay off the tax bill. Yet, he’d still managed to pay $133,000 in school fees during the previous year.
By 2001, the Bar Association had cancelled Davison’s ticket, yet amazingly he continued to ply the trade, earning about $100,000 for advice to the Walker Corporation.
In 2004, he was declared bankrupt for a third time – over a $612,370 tax debt. After several tribunal hearings and various appeals, Davison was finally struck off in 2007.
By 2009, Davison was working part-time as a Dan Murphy’s customer assistant. He went full-time in 2012, and discharged his third bankruptcy that same year.
In 2016, Davison applied to re-enrol as a lawyer. The Legal Profession Admission Board refused, deciding he was not fit and proper (s.17 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law). He appealed to the Supreme Court under s.21(6) of the LPUL.
There were several findings, made by tribunals in the early 2000s, with which Davison would have to contend. These included his long-standing failure to pay tax, his dereliction of civic duties, his deliberate schemes to frustrate the ATO, and his lavish lifestyle funded by tax debt.
McCallum held Davison had to show not just that there would not be a repeat of this kind of behaviour, but that his character had substantially changed.
He explained that his tax-avoiding behaviour was due to his depression and marital difficulties, and that he tried compensating with lavish spending.
This didn’t cut the ice. Her Honour described Davison as “persist[ing] in explanations which have already been rejected or found not to have excused his conduct to the extent he claimed”.
Davison denied that his tax-avoiding had been deliberate, but in the Bar Association’s view this showed he had not changed, the old flaws were still there and he refused to acknowledge they even existed. For instance, there was this:
Davison insisted he had changed. He contended that the “pain” of being struck off would prevent him from acting the same way again. He was no longer depressed, his wife was now helping with his finances, he always lodged his tax returns on time, and he understood the importance of paying tax:
McCallum thought this exchange showed Davison had a “naive” view of his tax obligations. She thought he had not dealt with the finding that his misbehaviour was deliberate. The onus on him was to show he now understood this course of conduct had been wrong.
She was not satisfied he had done so – the appeal against the admission board’s decision was unsuccessful.
It’s back to Dan Murphy’s.