The Sir Memorial Oration

Previous Speakers

Inaugural Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2006 (Canberra) Honourable Justice John AC Chief Justice Gibbs: Defending the Rule of Law in a Federal System

Second Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2008 (Sydney)

Honourable AC

Superior Courts in the Republic of

Third Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2010 (Perth) Eighth Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration Bryan Pape

Stopping Stimulus Spending The Society

Fourth Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2012 ()

Senator Hon George Brandis SC 13th August, 2016 In defence of Liberty: the Attack on Free Speech in Australia today Adelaide, South Australia

Fifth Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2013 (Sydney)

Honourable John Dyson Heydon AC Sir Samuel Griffith as Chief Justice of the

The Honourable Robert Shenton French AC Sixth Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2014 (Melbourne) Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia Honourable Justice Richard Tracey AM, RFD

The Constitution Goes to War

“Giving and Taking Offence” Seventh Sir Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration: 2015 (Canberra) Nicholas Cowdery AM, QC

The Magna Carta: its History and Enduring Relevance

About the Speaker

SIR HARRY TALBOT GIBBS PC AC GCMG KBE QC ROBERT SHENTON FRENCH AC (1917- 2005)

Robert French was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia on 1 September Born in 1917, Harry Gibbs was educated at the Ipswich Grammar School and later at 2008. At the time of his appointment he was a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, the University of , where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor having been appointed to that office in November 1986. He is a graduate of the University of Laws. In 1939 he was admitted to the Queensland Bar, but his legal career was of Western Australia in science and law. He was admitted in 1972 and practised as a interrupted by World War II and he served in the Australian Military Forces and in barrister and solicitor in Western Australia until 1983 when he went to the Independent Bar. the Second Australian Imperial Force in , attaining the rank of Captain. He was an associate member of the Trade Practices Commission (now the Australian In 1946, he was awarded a Master of Laws, and in 1957, was appointed Queen's Counsel. Competition and Consumer Commission) from 1983 to 1986 and Chancellor of Edith Gibbs was appointed a judge on the Supreme Court of Queensland in 1961, and in 1967, Cowen University from 1991 to 1996. From 1994 to 1998 he was President of the National Gibbs was appointed to the Federal Court of Bankruptcy and the ACT Supreme Court. In Native Title Tribunal. At the time of his appointment he was an additional member of the 1970, Gibbs was appointed to the High Court of Australia. He was knighted as a Knight Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory and a member of the Supreme Court of Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 1972, he was made a Privy Fiji. He was also a Deputy President of the Australian Competition Tribunal and a part time Councillor. In 1981, he was appointed Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, and member of the Australian Law Reform Commission. From 2001 to January 2005 he was was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George. In 1987, he President of the Australian Association of Constitutional Law. In 2010, he was made a was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia. After his retirement from the High Companion in the Order of Australia and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Court, Gibbs served as Vice-President of the Kiribati Court of Appeal between 1988 and Australia. He is Patron of the Australian Academy of Law and an Honorary Life Member of 1999. In the early 1990s, Gibbs was a signatory of the charter of Australians for the Australasian Law Teachers Association. Constitutional Monarchy and a member of its Foundation Council. His beliefs about the role of The Crown in Australian society saw him campaign for the NO case in the 1999 constitutional referendum. From 1992, he was President of the Samuel Griffith Society. He died in 2005. Gibbs married Muriel Dunn in 1944 and the couple had three daughters and a son, (Barbara, Mary, Margaret and Harry).