Shock … McColl issues a report … This is “serious” … The Bromskys … Welcome to the Law Reform Commission … Suitable cases for the Federal Court … Droves of Victorian SCs upgrade their baubles to KCs … Theodora reports 

The finding is that the former NSW premier engaged in “serious” corrupt conduct by arranging funds for a couple of projects in the electorate of someone she “strongly cared for” – Dodgy Daryl Maguire. 

Is it “serious” enough to elevate this brand of corruption from contract preferments, jobs-for-the-boys and sports rorts? 

Is Aunty Glad’s corruption any more “serious” than Eddie Obeid’s, who used his influence as a minister for the benefit of his own pocket, or the secret kickback allegations facing Stuey Robert, one of Brother Scott’s clapper mates? 

It is not as though Gladys was benefiting herself in funding clay target shooters and the Conservatorium of music in Wagga Wagga. 

Flinging taxpayer money at projects is a traditional form of political bribery – desperately in need of formal structures rather than political whim. 

Apparently, what made the Berejiklian case so “serious” is that the money went to an electorate held by someone in Gradys’ undisclosed “love circle”. 

Could it be that McColl has gone too hard as a way of trying to cover for her inordinate delay? 

The announcement that Mordy Bromberg is to become president of the Law Reform Commission was greeted with moans from the usual tired hacks. 

Stephen Rice, an indentured battering ram at The Australian, fresh from his duties trolling Brittany Higgins, had to dredge the bottom of the barrel to find a quote from Andrew Blot:

“If law ‘reform’ means more laws restricting free speech, Labor has recruited just the right fellow traveller for the job.” 

It doesn’t get more brilliant than that. 

The Rice Pudding went on to remind the retired majors on the leafy North Shore of the groundbreaking work of the Menzies “Research” Centre, which concluded that Justice Bromberg ruled in favour of unions in 91 percent of industrial relations cases he presided over in a two-year period. 

Regrettably, the ALRC didn’t want to publish the MRC’s study as part of its investigation into judicial bias. 

Cardinal Pelly at the Financial Review claimed the business community would be upset at the ALRC appointment because, quite apart from making a preponderance of his industrial relations decisions in favour of unions, Bromberg is a former Labor candidate.

By now we should realised that corporate interests are the flower of rectitude and Mordy is way out of line when finding against them – just as he was when he sought to put a leash on then Environment Minister, the supremely batty SSussan Ley, and her penchant for approving new coal mines. 

Chuckles Allsop, Federal Court chief at the time, was incandescent and birched the judge for wanting to protect small children from the effects of global warming. 

Bromberg, he said, had trespassed into “core, indeed high, policymaking for the executive and parliament involving questions of policy … which are unsuitable for the judicial branch to resolve in private litigation”. 

Two days after Attorney General Dreyfus announcement, the post-Allsop Federal Court whipped out a statement putting everything to rights: 

“That his Honour has been reversed on appeal is something which happens to every trial judge in the course of their career. The suggestion that mere reversal signifies anything about the competence of the trial judge subject to the appeal, is as misconceived as it is unfair.” 

The Judicial Officers Association chimed in with support: 

“While the AJOA acknowledges the vital role of the media in reporting on and providing commentary about the work of the courts and judges, this does not give the media licence to denigrate the work of judges, or to engage in personal and unwarranted attacks on members of the judiciary where those attacks arise out of the exercise of their judicial function. It should be borne in mind that judges cannot respond.” 

That should put the reptiles in their place. 

But not Planet Janet Albrechtsen, who released a spittle-flecked spray at the judges’ collective over its criticism of the Israel government’s plans to cauterise the country’s judiciary. 

The headline for Planet’s column was “There’s no place for judicial activism in a democracy”. She didn’t like the fact that the Israeli High Court could overturn laws of the Knesset.

And while “democracy” lingers on our breath, recent polling shows that 66 percent of Israelis believe the court should retain the power to strike down legislation incompatible with the country’s quasi-constitutional Basic Laws. 

Fancy that. 

This gets us to the other Brom in the Federal Court – Robert Bromwich, who had been asked to recuse himself from a defamation case dealing with a dispute over a lobster meal at Cabramatta’s Silver Pearl Seafood Restaurant. 

The recusal application was rejected and Bromwich transferred the hearing to the Circuit Court downstairs. 

This followed submissions about whether the Federal Court should confine itself to celebrity litigants or be open to ordinary people knocking on the doors of justice with their neighbourhood disputes. Bromwich said:

“After some further debate, I made the observation that the applicants would have had difficulty getting this case into the New South Wales Supreme Court and that if it was not suitable for the Supreme Court, I would need some persuading that it was suitable for the Federal Court. 

Mr Rasmussen responded by observing that customarily matters against the media are brought in the Supreme Court, but that he had noticed there are plenty of media matters brought in the District Court and a number dealing with Facebook publications were in the Supreme Court. 

A little later in the debate, I referred to the sorts of cases that were being heard in the Federal Court, like the case brought by Mr Rush, and the case brought by Mr Roberts-Smith, not cases of this kind, to which Mr Rasmussen responded that it would be a shame if this Court was turned into a celebrity court.  

I responded that it would be a shame if this Court was turned into a neighbourhood disputes court, and that this matter was somewhere between the two, but more at the neighbourhood dispute end of the spectrum. 

Mr Rasmussen ultimately asked that the question of transfer be left until the pleadings are closed.”  

Of the 23 recently appointed senior counsel at Vic’s Bar, 15 have taken up the royal bauble … and three recently retired judges have done the same.