Speaker Biographies The Twenty Eighth Conference of The Samuel SPEsGriffith Society 12th - 14th August, 2016 Stamford Plaza 150 North Terrace Adelaide, South Australia 5000 Honourable Ian Callinan AC QC President of the Samuel Griffith Society The Honourable Ian Callinan AC QC is the third and current President of the Samuel Griffith Society. He was a justice of the High Court of Australia from 1998 until 2007. He was admitted to the Queensland Bar in 1965 after studying Law at the University of Queensland. His many activities have included membership of the board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997) and of the Council of the National Gallery of Australia since 2007. In addition to plays and short stories, he has written several novels including The Lawyer and the Libertine (1997), The Coroner’s Conscience (1999) and A Hero’s Funeral (2009). Since his retirement from the High Court he has conducted numerous Government enquiries. He presented his first paper to the Society in 1994 entitled “An Over-Mighty Court?”. Friday Evening Address (Chair: Stuart Wood QC) “Our Present Discontents” The Honourable Tony ABBOTT MP was educated at St Ignatius’ College Riverview, and has degrees in economics and law from Sydney University and an MA in politics and philosophy from Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was elected to the Australian Parliament in 1994 as the Member for Warringah. Prior to entering the Parliament, he was a journalist with The Australian newspaper, a senior adviser to Opposition Leader John Hewson, and director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. Between 1996 and 2007, he was successively parliamentary secretary, minister, cabinet minister and Leader of the House of Representatives in the Howard government. In 2009 he was elected Leader of the Opposition, and in 2013, he was elected the 28th “Originalism in Australia” Prime Minister of Australia. He served in that role for 2 years. Session 1 - Judicial Method (Chair: Ben Jellis) “Using Statutory Interpretation to Protect Rights; Legislative Intention and ‘The Principle of Legality’” Professor Jeffrey GOLDSWORTHY has worked at Monash University since 1984, and was appointed to a Personal Chair in 2000. He was educated at the Universities of Adelaide (LLB Hons, 1976), Illinois (LLM, 1983) and California, Berkeley (MA, 1983; PhD, 1991). His major interests are legal philosophy, and constitutional law, theory, and history. He is best known for his books "The Sovereignty of Parliament, History and Philosophy" (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999) and "Parliamentary Sovereignty, Contemporary Debates" (Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 2010), his edited collection "Interpreting Constitutions, A Comparative Study" (Oxford UP, 2006) and many journal articles on statutory and constitutional interpretation. His article “Losing Faith in “Originalism in Australia” Democracy: Why Judicial Supremacy is Rising and What to Do About It” was published in the May 2015 issue of Quadrant. He is an honorary life member of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy, having served as its President from 2007 - 2014. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law “Originalism in Australia” Dr Lael K WEIS was educated at Stanford University (MA, JD, PhD) and is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Melbourne. Dr Weis’s principal research interests lie at the intersection of constitutional legal theory, democratic political theory, and comparative constitutional law. She is particularly interested in methodological questions concerning the use of comparative constitutional law to analyse issues in constitutional theory. Her work in this area has examined how assumptions about the purpose and function of constitutionalism inform theoretical debates about constitutional interpretation. Dr Weis’s research also encompasses topics concerning property law and theory, including the place of property in philosophical theories of justice and issues concerning the constitutionalization of property rules. Dr Weis is the founder and convenor of Melbourne Law School’s Legal Theory Workshop and she is the current Treasurer of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy. Session 2 - Taxation (Chair: Mark Livesey QC) Special Address by the Chief Justice of South Australia “In Re Revenue Taxation and the Federation: The States v The Commonwealth” The Honourable Chris KOURAKIS is the ninth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia. He was educated at Port Lincoln High School and the University of Adelaide (LL B, 1981) before being admitted to legal practice in 1982. He began his career at the Legal Services Commission and was called to the bar in 1989. He was appointed silk in 1997. He served as President of the Law Society of South Australia from 2001 to 2002, and in 2003, he was appointed the Solicitor-General for the State of South Australia. In 2008, he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia, and in 2012, was appointed Chief Justice. “The Taxation of Multinational Corporations” Mr Simon STEWARD, Q.C. was educated at Xavier College, Melbourne and the University of Melbourne (LLM). He was admitted to the legal profession in 1992, was called to the Victoria Bar in 1999, and took silk in 2009. He specialises in revenue disputes. He is a Senior Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne and the immediate past president of the Tax Bar Association. Relevantly, he has appeared, either for taxpayers or the Commissioner, in all of the transfer pricing disputes which have been reported over the last 10 years. In 2015, he was named as the Market Leader in Doyle's Guide Listing of leading tax barristers in Australia Session 3A - Protecting Human Rights (Chair: Jeffrey Phillips SC) “The Independent Commission against Corruption” Ms Margaret CUNNEEN SC was educated at Santa Sabina College, Strathfield, the NSW Institute of Technology (LL.B.) and the University of Sydney (LL.M) and is currently Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor in NSW. She was appointed a Crown Prosecutor in 1990 after holding positions of solicitor in charge of the Office of the DPP’s Advocacy Unit and legal roles at the Public Service Board, Parliamentary Counsel’s Office and the Attorney General’s Ministerial Office. She was appointed Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor in 2002 and took silk in 2007, and is presently a member of the NSW Bar Council. She has prosecuted many high-profile criminal cases and has a strong commitment to protecting the rights of victims of crime. In November 2012 she was appointed Commissioner of the Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland- Newcastle. She handed her Report to the Governor on 30 May 2014. This year is the 40th year of her service to the people of New South Wales. “Freedom of Speech” Mr Brendan O’NEILL is editor of spiked, the daily online magazine based in London. He is also a frequent contributor to The Australian and The Spectator. His journalism has been published widely in both the UK and the US, including in The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. He was nominated as Columnist of the Year at the Press Publishing Awards for his column in the Big Issue. The UK Daily Telegraph calls him "one of this country's sharpest social commentators". He has appeared as a guest on Australian television, including episodes of Q&A, and The Drum. A collection of his essays, “A Duty to Offend”, was published last year. Session 4 - Reserve Powers of the Crown (Chair: Hon Richard Court AC) “The Perils of Defining the Reserve Powers of the Crown” Mr Don MORRIS FRGS was educated at the Launceston Church Grammar School, Scotch Oakburn College and Christ College, University of Tasmania (B.A.). He was a member of the Personal Staff of the Governor of Tasmania from 1989 to 1993 and then Secretary of the Government of Norfolk Island from 1993 to 1996. He was Assistant Director, Pacific Territories, in the Australian Public Service. He was Private Secretary to successive Presidents of the Senate from 2001 to 2007 and has worked in the private offices of several federal ministers and two Premiers of Victoria. He is co-author of a local history book published in 1990 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1995. He is currently a full-time Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, based in Hobart. “The Dismissal: 40 years on” Sir David SMITH KCVO AO was born in Melbourne and was educated at Melbourne University and The Australian National University. He joined the Commonwealth Public Service in 1953, and served in the Departments of Customs and Excise, Interior, and Prime Minister and Cabinet, and in the Governor-General’s Office, until his retirement in 1990. He was Principal Private Secretary to the Minister for the Interior and the Minister for Works from 1958 to 1963; Secretary to the Federal Executive Council and head of the Government Branch, Parliamentary and Government Division, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, from 1971 to 1973; Official Secretary to five Governors-General (Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir John Kerr, Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Ninian Stephen and Mr. Bill Hayden) from 1973 to 1990; and the inaugural Secretary of the Order of Australia from 1975 to 1990. He was attached to The Queen's Household, Buckingham Palace, in June/July 1975. He was invested by the Queen as a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1977 at Government House, Canberra; was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1986; and shortly before his retirement in 1990 was knighted by the Queen as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in a private investiture at Balmoral Castle. Since his retirement he has held three honorary appointments at the Australian National University.