Darrin Moy, the Federal Court’s former golden boy in charge of “people, culture and communications”, has decamped and last month wound up as CEO of NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption.Former ferry master moves on from the Federal Court to hot seat at ICAC … Baseball bat bruising for Shane Drumgold … Torpor judges out West … Brandis and Pezzullo – a marriage made in heaven … Trogs frothing at Vic’s Bar … Goings On with Theodora
Darrin Moy, the Federal Court’s former golden boy in charge of “people, culture and communications”, has decamped and last month wound up as CEO of NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Darrin arrived at the court in 2016 after stints as the culture manager at Sydney Ferries and before that HR and community development at the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.
His job at the FCA included reviewing and reorganising operations across the “agency”. Unfortunately, the bow-tie wearing Darrin and the court’s CEO and principal registrar, Sia Lagos, had a tumultuous bust-up, accompanied by tears and gnashing of teeth.
Shortly after Moy got his feet under his desk at the court he issued Enterprise Bargaining Update No. 1, explaining to the troops that the financial position is tight and there will need to be “productivity initiatives”, accompanied by improvements in “output”.
Justinian had the unpleasant duty to point out that a slab of Darrin’s treatise on productivity was lifted holus-bolus from a missive by Alan Joyce in the Qantas magazine.
Here’s Darrin in his October 2016 update:
“Productivity can be seen across the economy. Years ago a top-of-the range laptop cost about $5000 and by today’s standards it would be an absolute brick. Current laptops run rings around what was possible years ago and now cost about $2000. Airfares are a similar story. Fifteen years ago, a flight from Sydney to Melbourne cost around $400. Then, you stood in a queue to check in, brought a magazine for entertainment and knew you’d be out of contact for the entire flight. Now, the average airfare is about $160.”
And here’s Alan, earlier the same month:
“Years ago, I bought a top-of-the-line laptop that cost me about $5000. By today’s standards, it would be an absolute brick. My current laptop runs rings around it and cost about $2000.
Airfares in Australia have been on a similar trajectory. Fifteen years ago, a flight from Sydney to Melbourne cost around $400. Back then, you stood in a queue to check in, brought a good book for entertainment and knew you’d be out of contact for the entire flight.”
What extraordinary synchronicity. We were hoping that the court’s copyright gurus might have sorted it out.
It’s heartening that a plagiarism infraction has not stopped ICAC hiring the strategy expert to run the corruption buster’s management team.
See the scissors and paste up close
For his part, Drumgold is seeking judicial review of Sofronoff’s findings on the handling of the abandoned Lehrmann rape case.
Victorian reserve appeal judge Stephen Kaye has been chosen to sit in the ACT Supremes to hear and determine the review application.
Drumgold is not new to courtroom controversy, judging by a Canberra Times report in March, 2019.
He was then prosecuting Alex Ophel, a former ANU student accused of attempting to murder his tutor and classmates with a baseball bat.
This is the same Alex Ophel who in September this year hit a male ANU student on the head with a frying pan and stabbed two female students.
He has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault, and one count of possessing an object to be used to kill.
The 2019 baseball bat spree resulted in a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental impairment. Ophel was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but at the trial DPP Drumgold opposed the mental impairment plea and contended that the accused acted on pre-existing violent tendencies – which included comments about raping women and an obsession with school shootings.
Justice John Burns was unimpressed, and in his summing up to the jury gave Drummers a good bollicking.
“You may ask yourself why [Ophel’s parents and his treating doctors] were not called as part of the Crown’s case. Was this because their evidence did not fit the Crown theory of the accused’s mental state?”
He added that the jury might think the Crown knew there was no expert testimony supporting its case theory, which led to the “extraordinary suggestion that you effectively dismiss the expert opinions and engage in a bit of do-it-yourself psychiatry”.
“What I have said about the prosecution in this case should not be taken to be a suggestion that the Crown has set out to mislead or deceive … but, rather, that sometimes zeal may overwhelm good judgment.”
The WA Supremes’ Larissa Strk seems to have been on strike, taking over two years to bring forth her judgment in Melvin v AG Melvin, MJ Melvin & RN Melvin.
It’s not as though things were slowed down due to a short supplementary submission filed after the hearing finished on August 3, 2021.
The wonderful thing is that this judgment was about a pleading point. The main trial hasn’t happened yet.
Our western affairs correspondent Groper has mentioned Larissa’s cruisy style in previous bulletins:
See:
Age shall not weary them
Western mail
Fees please
Laments from across the Nullarbor
For the record
WA District Court judge David MacLean took almost 21 months to deliver reasons in Ms Robertson (a pseudonym) v Mr Wilson (a pseudonym).
It involved family law issues, but ended up in the District Court where MacLean dealt with things like an intention to create legal relations and estoppel.
The judge is related to the Indigenous magistrate Gavin MacLean, mentioned recently in dispatches.
Gavin had a run in with an interpreter at the Karratha Magistrates Court in May 2021. On appeal Justice Marcus Solomon found the Madge’s tone to be dismissive, strident and sarcastic – giving rise to a substantial miscarriage of justice.
Investigative news hounds revealed that the lizard-eyed Pezzullo was a political player and had strayed beyond the functions supposedly exercised by loyal public servants.
In secret text messages with Scott Briggs, Pezzullo was critical of Brandis’ opposition to the creation of the Department of Home Affairs – the AG was “sniping and conducting an insurgency”.
In his newspaper column Brandis generously described Briggs as a Liberal Party “parasite [and] spiv”.
Home Affairs came into existence in December 2017, just as Brandis was packing his silk jim-jams for London. At the time the new department swallowed some of the security agencies previously under the administrative sway of the AGs, such as ASIO and the AFP.
Maybe, that’s part of the reason for the unattractive snitching between the two. Yet, it’s not as though the former attorney general was averse to the heavy-handed national security regime that these agencies kept dishing up.
That’s enough for starters.
George and Micky Pezzullo are joined at the hip when it comes to bolstering the national security state and giving Plod more power.
The only difference is that Bookshelves has ended up as a “professor” of national security at the ANU, while Mick is soon to spend more time with his garden.
Schisms once again are widening at Vic’s Bar n’ Grill.
The latest disquiet concerns a proposed amendment to the bar’s constitution – to add two new provisions about its “purpose” as a barristers’ guild.
Rumours circulated that this was not put to the Bar Council for a vote. President Sammy Hay shot that down, insisting it was all carefully massaged by the equality and diversity committee.
The National Rupert reported that barrister Lana Collaris circulated a protest email urging a NO vote. Sprinkled with overtones of Voice themes Lana wrote:
“The proposed amendments are divisive and will only serve to divide a bar that is already inclusive. The constitution is a contract between the bar and its members.”
She added that these purpose provisions could lead to litigation – being funded from the pockets of all members and that the amendments were “underpinned by the political philosophy of victimhood, and the belief that the bar is a hateful place where discrimination is rife and incurable”.
It goes to the vote at the AGM on October 23.
This comes hard on the heels of the contentious poll asking members whether the guild should support constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians – 57% agreed and 40.4% said there should be no public support.
The porcine Stuart Wood KC stirred things along nicely before the poll by telling hacks at News Corp that barristers who supported the Yes case only did so because it was a money spinner.
“The other thing too … is that it doesn’t hurt them to be seen to be woke with their corporate clients too. If you come out and parade as someone who’s in with the [Voice] zeitgeist, then you’re not only advertising to the Victorian and federal governments that you’re the right person to brief, you’re advertising to most of the companies too …”
Prez Hay said Wood’s comments were “offensive and wrong and should not have been made”.
More recently there has been a strange kerfuffle involving trogs who are hot under the collar because the bar was not kicking up a fuss about the threat to free speech posed by the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
According to the National Rupert, barristers Peter A. Clarke and Philip Hayes were going to form their own Voltaire Society to advocate for freedom of speech.
The Rupert went on to explain that the society was “named after philosopher Aurelio Voltaire”, and it would counter the woke issues that are the focus of the bar’s nabobs.
Not to be confused, “philosopher” Aurelio (born 1967) is different from M. de Voltaire, aka François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), a Cuban-American singer and Goth.