161 VICTORIAN BAR NEWS BAR VICTORIAN ISSUE 161 WINTER 2017 VICTORIAN A fiery start to the Bar BAR Cliff Pannam Spies like us NEWS Stephen Charles Remembering Ronald Ryan Masterpiece Bill Henson work unveiled WINTER 2017 161 At the Glasshouse: The Bar dinner photographs ISSUE 161 WINTER 2017 VICTORIAN BAR NEWS Editorial 44 Milky Way Dreaming KRISTINE HANSCOMBE QC Not the 24 hour news cycle 3 THE EDITORS 46 Innovate, regulate: Michael McGarvie, Victorian Legal Letters to the editors 5 Services Commissioner President’s report 6 GEORGINA COSTELLO AND JESSE RUDD JENNIFER BATROUNEY QC 20 Around town Bar Lore 2017 Victorian Bar Dinner 8 52 A Fiery start at the Bar — Indigenous Justice 14 some fifty years ago Committee RAP event DR CLIFF PANNAM QC SALLY BODMAN 58 Remembering Ronald Ryan George Hampel AM QC 16 KERRI RYAN ELIZABETH BRIMER 62 Where there’s a will, we’ll go a Henson portrait of the Hon 20 Waltzing Matilda: Serendipity Ken Hayne AC QC in chambers SIOBHAN RYAN W. BENJAMIN LINDNER Supreme Court of Victoria 24 v Australian Cricket Society 8 Back of the Lift THE HON DAVID HARPER AM 66 Adjourned Sine Die Bar, Bench and Solicitors golf day 27 67 Silence all stand CAROLINE PATTERSON 46 68 Vale News and Views 76 Gonged Volunteering at the Capital 28 77 Victorian Bar Readers Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana Boilerplate NATALIE HICKEY 78 A bit about words JULIAN BURNSIDE QC The David Combe affair 31 THE HON STEPHEN CHARLES AO QC 80 Off the Wall SIOBHÁN RYAN The Judicial College 38 82 Red Bag Blue Bag of Victoria master of its fate 83 The Australian Electoral VBN Commission and the itchy Direct questions and 40 pen philosophy leading questions THE HON PETER HEEREY AM QC ANDREW PALMER AND 58 84 Book Reviews THE HON GEORGE HAMPEL AM QC 88 Verbatim 1 VBN VBN 3 ISSUE 161 WINTER 2017 VICTORIAN BAR Editorial NEWS Editors: Georgina Schoff QC and Georgina Costello Victorian Bar News Editorial Committee: Georgina Schoff QC, Georgina Costello (Editors), Maree Norton, Annette Charak, Justin Wheelahan, (Deputy Editors) Catherine Pierce, Brad Barr, Jesse Rudd, Natalie Hickey, Justin Hooper and Georgie Coleman Contributors: (In alphabetical order) Jennifer Batrouney QC, Sally Bodman, Elizabeth Brimer, Julian Burnside AO QC, Mark Campbell, Stephen Charles AO QC, Georgina Costello, Mark Costello, Susan Crennan AC QC, the Hon Justice Digby, Tim Dowling, Ray Gibson, George Hampel AM QC, Kristine Hanscombe QC, the Hon David Harper AM QC, Natalie Hickey, Paul Holdenson QC, the Hon Murray Kellam AO, Greg McNamara, Sophie McNamara, Andrew Palmer, Dr Cliff Pannam QC, Catherine Pierce, Jesse Rudd, Kerri Ryan, Siobhan Ryan, Hugh Selby, Georgina Schoff, Justin Wheelahan Not the 24 hour Editorial adviser: Peter Barrett Photo contributors: Neil Prieto, Peter Bongiorno and Michael Barritt news cycle Cover Photograh: Bill Henson Publisher: The Victorian Bar Inc., Level 5, GEORGINA SCHOFF & GEORGINA COSTELLO, EDITORS Owen Dixon Chambers, 205 William Street, Melbourne VIC 3000. Registration No. A ictorian Bar News, unlike Twitter, Facebook status updates 0034304 S. and the 24 hour news cycle, takes some time to arrive, The publication of Victorian Bar News may hitting your chambers about each six months or so, on be cited as (2016) 159 Vic B.N. Opinions something like a 4,500 hour news cycle. expressed are not necessarily those of the Bar Council or the Bar or of any person other than With varying distance between the news and events it the author. covers, Bar News offers the benefit of hindsight as well as Advertising: describing the march of progress. We thank you for your patience for this All enquiries including request for advertising (err… overdue… sorry) issue, which will be the final one from us as editors. rates to be sent to: Bar News relies entirely upon the participation of its members for Sally Bodman content, with occasional contributions from those outside the Bar. For The Victorian Bar Inc. Vsome of our authors writing is clearly a vocation (quite apart from the Level 5, Owen Dixon Chambers writing they do as barristers or judges) and the copy arrives in a steady 205 William Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 stream. They include Julian Burnside, Stephen Charles, Peter Heerey, Cliff Tel: (03) 9225 7909 Pannam, the late James Merralls, Ed Heerey and Siobhan Ryan. In many Email: [email protected] respects their contributions have been the backbone of Bar News under Illustrations, design and production: Guy our editorship and we thank them for that. Others write when they are Shield and The Slattery Media Group; www. inspired by a particular topic or event or because we have coerced them to slatterymedia.com do so. Writing for publication is never an easy task, and we hope that those Contributions: Victorian Bar News welcomes who have provided contributions have found the process a rewarding one. contributions to [email protected] So much goes on in the life of the Bar and as we have said before, Bar News is an important record of our collective pursuits. We consider it particularly important to record the appointments, retirements and deaths of our members. As the Bar grows in size, this task has become increasingly challenging. Long ago, Cicero said that eloquence is the lamp of reason. To write eloquently is one of the skills that we all hope to acquire as barristers. VBN 3 Kids INWigs Bar News offers each of you an opportunity to hone those skills and to focus them on something other than a legal argument. We encourage you to continue to support this wonderful publication editorial editorial by contributing your written words. In addition to our contributors, we extend our thanks to the Bar News committee members, particularly our past and present Deputy Editors Anthony Strahan, Annette Charak, Justin Whelehan and Maree Norton, to Natalie Hickey who might be considered to be our “staff writer” and to our reliably excellent sub-editors: Jesse Rudd and Brad Barr. We thank the staff of the Bar Office, including Denise Bennett who now assists us remotely from Byron Bay and Sarah Fregon. We also thank past and present Presidents who have (for the most part) left us to our own devices. We must also thank Guy Shield of the Slattery Media Group, who has been responsible for the design and layout of each of the issues that we have edited. His wonderful illustrations have lent the Bar News under our editorship a unique character. One thing that we will particularly miss is choosing the pictures of our colleagues for Around Town. Barristers can be a glamorous lot (when we try) and we think that some of our spreads have rivalled those of Vanity Fair. In this issue, for instance, the photographs of the Bar Dinner fairly dazzle the eye, as do the photographs of the event at which Bill Henson’s photographic portrait of the Hon Kenneth Hayne AC QC was unveiled. The portrait itself, which we have reproduced on the cover of this issue, is we think, a masterpiece. We wish you all happy reading now and well into the future. Clara Plunkett (James Plunkett’s daughter) 4 VBN VBN 5 TO THE Letters Editors editorial The dream of a life as a barrister y mother One colleague who has sat the exam something I want shouldn’t be causing asked me a number of times recently remarked: me so much heartache when I don’t when I was 13 achieve it”. “Of all the adversities I have overcome, what I wanted enrolling in and undertaking two Collectively it is accepted that the exam to be when I grew up. I told her that I degrees with two children under five is here to stay, but the delicious irony was going to be a barrister. and no partner, the exam and my of the whole process is that those who MUnfortunately life got in the way and inability to reach the 75 marks has been introduced the exam concept and are it wasn’t until 2006, after a career in the most difficult adversity I have had involved in setting, marking, discussing Government, that I took the plunge and to face. Each time as a single mother and analysing the exam, generally started a law degree, intending to honour stumping up the $500 to sit the exam, didn’t have to achieve the magical 75. the intention that I had indicated to my to say nothing of the $6,000 payable a Other than publication of sample mum many years before. week after being offered a place on the answers seven weeks or so after a three At that stage entry to the readers’ readers’ course. And this is in a climate hour exam, the transparency afforded course was through the waiting list of encouraging more women to come to to examinees in exchange for the $500 that the overwhelming majority the Bar”. odd dollars is non-existent. of readers of this publication will All those who sit the exam, remember. Much to my dismay and Another after the last exam results told essentially put their lives on hold. disappointment shortly before the me tearfully: The need to study, memorise and completion of my degree, the readers’ “I’ve wanted to be a barrister since I understand each of the areas. course exam was introduced. was ten years old and can’t imagine Procedure, evidence and ethics It is said that one should not have doing anything else, but I’m now at a becomes all consuming, to the point regrets, but here I was full of regret at point where I feel so dejected and that where nothing else matters.