UPDATE … Increasingly rancid accusations in NSW bar election … Utterly extraordinary campaign … Inaccurate claims … Latest muck from Phillip Street  

Right-wing “Neutralist” and current NSW bar councillor, Jeffrey Phillips, was fast out of the box with a critical response to an interview president Jane Needham gave to The Sydney Morning Herald.  

Phillips claims the interview is “embarrassing to our profession”.  

“The president’s decision to go into the media exemplifies the things the Political Neutrality ticket is determined to change about the bar association.” 

Phillips says the article is “deliberate”, draws “unfavourable media attention” to the association and is publicly critical of members. 

“The article is also replete with the sort of insinuations that have become all too common in public comments by office bearers of the bar association; namely, that the NSW bar is in some way a sexist place, and inhospitable to women.” 

Phillips wants people to contact him and he will provide a “point-by-point response to the president’s assertions”. 

While the tone of the NSW NSW bar council elections has become sordid and puerile, Phillips’ complaint is specially perplexing as Needham’s interview was constrained to the point of being utterly mild. 

She said her time as president had been a “valuable and constructive” experience, but also extremely “stressful” and she wouldn’t want to do it again. 

She commented on an email (from Hugh Marshall) where he criticised things the bar had initiated that are of interest to women, rather than men. 

“There is no criticism, for example, of the bar having a soccer team,” Needham added in what is now deemed an intolerable insinuation. 

The concept of “unfavourable media attention”, pales into insignificance when you consider Phillips’ own efforts in this regard.

In 2012 it was reported that Phillips, as patron of the St John’s College student club, stood up at a college dinner and paid tribute to the “traditional custodians of this place … the Benedictines who came from the great English nation”.  

There was general outrage and disgust at his crassness, including from University of Sydney’s vice-chancellor Michael Spence.  

“The university is very proud of the fact that it stands on land where indigenous peoples have been teaching and learning for many thousands of years before us and we acknowledge this publicly whenever we can.” 

Phillips is reported to hold “networking events” with St John’s students, including long lunches and even a helpful “cigar and a whisky appreciation” evening. 

Phillips later apologised, but in a letter to an aggrieved student defended his speech as an “important message of forgiveness and tolerance”.  

On the basis of this record we might expect more colourful contributions to “unfavourable media attention” if the old Abbott-Monarchist faction succeeds in coming home on November 5. 

In fact, Abbott was sufficiently personally impressed with Phillips that he shoehorned him into a job as Defence Force Advocate, enabling Jeff to dress-up in various military costumes.  

Another contentious election issue is the way in which the Bennett-Cunneen-Phillips-Hyde Page ticket has hammered the point that a leader of the opposing Stability team told the media that “many barristers have an attitude to the advancement of women that is ignorant and offensive”. 

For instance, in her recent email to members Margaret Cunneen said:  

“At the time of release of the bar association’s new equitable briefing policy a representative of the bar association told the media and was quoted as saying many barristers have an attitude to the advancement of women that is ‘ignorant’ and ‘offensive’ (Australian Financial Review, September 4, 2015).” 

Cunneen said this “highly partisan foray” into the public arena was “imprudent”. 

Danny Feller, from Edmund Barton chambers, made the same claim in a message to members and so too the excitable Miranda Devine in The Smellograph.   

There are two problems with this. It was never published in the AFR on September 4 or any other time and the claim that “many barristers” have ignorant and offensive attitudes to the advancement of women was never said. 

What senior vice Arthur Moses did tell The Australian when discussing the bar’s equitable briefing policy was this:  

“Mere platitudes including ignorant and, with respect, offensive statements that women have to do more to get ‘noticed’ are a diversion from the real problems.” 

There was no mention whatsoever of “many barristers” having these attitudes to women. 

For Phillips, and others, to be banging on about “factual inaccuracies” on the part of the Stability ticket is an indication of the sloppiness that passes for electioneering by the “Neutral” brigade. 

Nor should we overlook John Hyde Page’s misleading claims. In a recent email to members he said: 

“My personal view is that the bar association has no business commenting on climate change, children in detention, and the other idiosyncratic issues that have been a staple of the last year. What is needed instead is a proper focus on serving the membership.” 

What statement on climate change by the NSW bar association? None can be found. And for the record it was the Australian Bar Association that made “idiosyncratic” comments about children in detention. See here and here. 

“The literature distributed in support of the political neutrality ticket is not ‘propaganda’. Every assertion about the public statements and policy positions of the bar council has been fully referenced.”  

Leaks, generally supportive of the QC-Far-Right ticket have also found their way into the embrace of the compliant Murdoch tissues. 

For instance, while the NSW bar ‘n grill’s submission to the NSW attorney general on reintroducing QCs is “confidential” and not available to members, selective quotes from it wound-up in Friday’s Australian.

The same, jaded arguments that were trotted out by the Yarraside bar in support of its case for the retention of the royal flourish are being revarnished for the NSW attorney general, Gabrielle Upton. 

NSW briefs are at a “distinct disadvantage when competing for work” against Victorians and Queenslanders – “both nationally and internationally”. 

An attempt to critically analyse these claims can be found here.  

Meanwhile, The Australian continues to give the impression that it is part of Margaret Cunneen’s PR machine with stories about ICAC’s seizure of her mobile phone. One can only hazard wild guesses who is feeding these helpful morsels to Rupert’s reptiles.