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Ceremonial Sitting - Swearing-in of Justice Bell Canberra [ 2009] HCATrans 4  (3 February 2009)

Last Updated: 6 February 2009

[2009] HCATrans 004

H I G H C O U R T O F A U S T R A L I A

CEREMONIAL SITTING

TO MARK THE OCCASION

OF

THE SWEARING-IN

OF

THE HONOURABLE VIRGINIA MARGARET BELL

AS A JUSTICE OF THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

AT

CANBERRA

ON

TUESDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2009, AT 10.16 AM

Coram:

FRENCH CJ
GUMMOW J
HAYNE J
HEYDON J
KIEFEL J

In addition to the members of the Court the following dignitaries were present on the Bench:

The Honourable Sir Anthony Mason, AC, KBE, retired Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia

The Honourable Sir Gerard Brennan, AC, KBE, retired Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia

The Honourable Mary Gaudron, retired Justice of the High Court of Australia

The Honourable Michael McHugh, AC, QC, retired Justice of the High Court of Australia

The Honourable Michael Kirby, AC, CMG, retired Justice of the High Court of Australia

Members of the Judiciary seated within the Court:

The Honourable Michael Black, AC, Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia

The Honourable Diana Bryant, Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia

The Honourable John Doyle, AC, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia

The Honourable Paul de Jersey, AC, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland

The Honourable James Spigelman, AC, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales

The Honourable Terence Higgins, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory

The Honourable Marilyn Warren, AC, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria

The Honourable Brian Martin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory

The Honourable Wayne Martin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia

The Honourable Justice R. Buchanan, Federal Court of Australia

The Honourable Justice M. Gordon, Federal Court of Australia

The Honourable Justice L. Foster, Federal Court of Australia

The Honourable Deputy Chief Justice J. Faulks, Family Court of Australia

The Honourable Justice M. Finn, Family Court of Australia

The Honourable Justice J. Allsop, President, Court of Appeal, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice M. Beazley, AO, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice M. Tobias, AM, RFD, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice R. McColl, AO, Court of Appeal, New South Wales and Chairman, The Judicial Conference of Australia

The Honourable Justice J. Basten, Court of Appeal, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice P. McClellan, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice C. Simpson, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice C. Einstein, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice M. Adams, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice P. Whealy, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice R. Howie, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice J. Hislop, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice M. Latham, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice S. Rothman, AM, Supreme Court, New South Wales

The Honourable Justice M. Gray, President, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, Australian Capital Territory

The Honourable Justice R. Refshauge, Supreme Court, Australian Capital Territory

The Honourable Justice H. Penfold, Supreme Court, Australian Capital Territory

Mr R. Cahill, Chief Magistrate, Australian Capital Territory

Mrs M. Doogan, Magistrates Court, Australian Capital Territory

The Honourable Justice C. Wheeler Supreme Court, Western Australia (Australian Institute of Judicial Administration)

At the Bar Table the following persons were present:

The Honourable Robert McClelland, MP, Attorney-General for the Commonwealth

Mr Stephen Gageler, SC, Solicitor-General for the Commonwealth

Mr Walter Sofronoff, QC, Solicitor-General for the State of Queensland

Mr Robert Meadows, QC, Solicitor-General for the State of Western Australia

Mr Michael Sexton, QC, Solicitor-General for the State of New South Wales

Ms Pamela Tate, SC, Solicitor-General for the State of Victoria

Mr Michael Grant, QC, Solicitor-General for the Northern Territory

Mr Martin Hinton, QC, Solicitor-General for the State of South Australia

Mr Tom Bathurst, QC, President of the Australian Bar Association

Mr John Corcoran, President of the Law Council of Australia

Mr John Digby, QC, Chairman of the Victorian Bar

Ms Anna Katzmann, SC, President of the New South Wales Bar Association

Mr Stephen Estcourt, QC, representing the President of the Tasmanian Independent Bar

Mr Michael Stewart, SC, President of the Bar Association of Queensland

Mr Malcolm Blue, QC, President of the South Australian Bar Association

Mr Simon Moncrieff, SC, representing the President of the Bar Association of Western Australia

Mr Stuart Pilkinton, President of the Australian Capital Territory Bar Association

Mr Ian Barker, QC

Mr Barry O’Keefe, AM, QC

Mr David Jackson, AM, QC

Mr David Bennett, AC, QC

Mr John Maconachie, QC

Mr Anthony Bannon, SC

Mr David Buchanan, SC

Mr Mark Ierace, SC

Mr Justin Gleeson, SC

Mr Christopher Craigie, SC

Ms Alison Stenmark, SC

Mr Paul Santamaria, SC

Mr James Stevenson, SC

Ms Christine Adamson, SC

Mr Andrew Haesler, SC

Mr Richard Cobden, SC

Senator the Hon George Brandis, SC

Mr Christopher Bruce, SC

Mr Dennis Wilson

Mr James Gibson

Mr Malcolm Duncan

Mr Terrence Lynch

Ms Angela Seward

Ms Nanette Rogers

Mr Sitesh Bhojani

Speakers:

The Honourable Robert McClelland, MP, Attorney-General for the Commonwealth

Mr John Corcoran, President of the Law Council of Australia

Mr Tom Bathurst, QC, President of the Australian Bar Association

Ms Anna Katzmann, SC, President of the New South Wales Bar Association

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

BELL J: Chief Justice, I have the honour to announce that I have received a Commission from Her Excellency, the Governor-General, appointing me a Justice of the High Court of Australia. I hand you my Commission.

FRENCH CJ: Mr Principal Registrar, would you please read the Commission aloud.

PRINCIPAL REGISTRAR:

Commission of Appointment of a Justice of the High Court of Australia

I, QUENTIN BRYCE, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council and under section 72 of the Constitution and section 5 of the High Court of Australia Act 1979, appoint the Honourable Justice Virginia Margaret Bell, a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, to be a Justice of the High Court of Australia commencing on 3 February 2009 until she attains the age of 70 years.

Signed and sealed with the Great Seal of Australia on 17 December 2008. Quentin Bryce, Governor-General, By Her Excellency’s Command, Robert McClelland, Attorney-General.

FRENCH CJ: Justice Bell, I now invite you to take the Oath of Allegiance and of Office.

BELL J: I, Virginia Margaret Bell, do swear that I will bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors, according to law, that I will well and truly serve Her in the Office of Justice of the High Court of Australia and that I will do right to all manner of people, according to law without fear or favour, affection or ill-will. So help me God.

FRENCH CJ: Justice Bell, I now invite you to subscribe the Oath of Allegiance and of Office.

FRENCH CJ: Mr Principal Registrar, I now ask you to place these documents in the records of the Court.

FRENCH CJ: Justice Bell, I congratulate you and invite you to take your seat at the Bench and to proceed to the discharge of your duties as a Justice of this Court.

FRENCH CJ: Yes, Mr Attorney.

MR McCLELLAND: May it please the Court.

First, may I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land we meet on, and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present.

Second, it is my very great pleasure to be the person, on this occasion, to open the formal part of the proceedings.

On behalf of the Government and people of Australia, I offer your Honour my congratulations and best wishes on your appointment to the High Court of Australia.

I understand that many of those close to you, including your parents, John and Mary, your brother, Chris, and close family and friends are here today to share this special moment with you. I know all have been a tremendous support to you.

Although perhaps a little less ordinary than some legal careers, particularly at the outset, your career has been a distinguished one indeed and one that has paved the way for this appointment.

To quote the President of the New South Wales Bar Association at the time of your Honour’s swearing-in to the New South Wales Supreme Court: “You bring to this Bench a long experience in life, law and ordinary people.”

You have a broad legal career spanning three decades – as a community lawyer, a barrister, a public defender, senior counsel, Law Reform commissioner and judge. It is the totality of this experience and contribution that has led to your Honour’s appointment to Australia’s highest Court.

Your early years were spent as what has been described as a naval “brat” on Garden Island in Sydney, where your father was a naval officer and ultimately general manager. It has been suggested that this military upbringing, which is a feature of our defence forces, helped shape your strong sense of public duty.

I understand that initially you had considered a career as an actor, and, indeed, I am told that your graduation from law school was almost overshadowed by your contemporaneous graduation from the Dame Doris Fitton’s School of Dramatic Art and Independent Theatre in Sydney. However, I must say that the stage’s loss was the law’s gain.

Even so, you have maintained a strong connection to the arts and theatre. You have clearly demonstrated that there is always a life outside the law.

In 1978 your Honour began your legal career, initially working as a volunteer, at the newly established Redfern Legal Centre. After some time your dedication was finally recognised with an actual salary.

During your Honour’s seven years at the Centre you were involved in landmark civil liberties cases and were a driving force behind the establishment of the Prisoners’ Legal Service.

Your Honour’s appointment is, in part, due recognition to the vitally important role that the legal sector plays to our community.

Your Honour began working as a barrister in 1984, joining Frederick Jordan Chambers. In 1986 your Honour was appointed as a public defender and I must say that all those who have worked with you recognise your aptitude, your character and your integrity and all have been enormously supportive of your appointment.

Throughout this time, your Honour consolidated your reputation as a strong advocate with a sharp legal mind and an engaging sense of humour.

However, despite your work for the poor and disadvantaged, you avoided the pitfalls of sentimentality and political correctness. On one occasion it has been reported that meeting a client, a reputed hit man charged with murder, you were heard to remark, “Look at you Chris, dressed to kill”.

In court, you are renowned for your ability to run a flawless trial and conduct incisive cross-examination. Your skills of persuasion, both with judges and juries, reflected your deep interest in, and respect for, people from all walks of life.

Your ability to tie a witness in knots is widely respected, and has been demonstrated well beyond the courtroom.

When you chanced your arm as a talk show host on Late Night Live on ABC Radio, it has been suggested that erudite discussions of art, literature and history with prominent experts became less a matter for refined interchange, and more subjects for acute forensic dissection. This involved full frontal attack on your guests as hostile witnesses, with your Honour out to break whatever story they purported to tell on matters such as French design or contemporary architecture. I am very pleased, indeed, to have avoided such an interview.

In 1995, your Honour was appointed counsel assisting the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service which laid the foundation for significant improvements and the standard of the police force that we have today.

In November 1997, you were appointed Senior Counsel. Between 1997 and 1999 your Honour also served as a part-time commissioner with the New South Wales Law Reform Commission.

Your Honour’s appointment as a Judge to the Supreme Court of New South Wales came in 1999 and while you are known outside the court for your quick wit and commitment to social justice, in court you had developed an awareness of the appropriate role of a trial judge and also the boundaries of the law. This you made clear at the time of your swearing-in to the New South Wales Supreme Court:

“I bear in mind that the Chief Justice of Australia when Chief Justice of this state said words to the effect that if a judge is burdened by a sense of humour, it would be rather a good thing if he or she did not demonstrate that fact from the bench.”

This approach earned, as I understand it, with your friends the nickname of “Mrs Judge”, but nonetheless, pleasingly, you have not been able to mask your humanity.

Your appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2008 was a further acknowledgment of your sound judgment, intellect and ability to become conversant with new areas of the law.

Your Honour, we are proud and grateful to live in a country ruled by law and not by men, but we are grateful too that you will be adding to the ranks of the very talented women who are interpreting and applying that law at the highest level.

Your Honour is an outstanding member of the judiciary. As you now move into your new role I know you will continue to serve the law and the Australian community with great distinction.

Once again, on behalf of the Government and the people of Australia, I extend to you congratulations and best wishes of the Australian people on being appointed to the highest Court of Australia.

FRENCH CJ: Thank you, Mr Attorney. Mr Corcoran, President of the Law Council of Australia.

MR CORCORAN: May it please the Court.

It gives me great pleasure to appear on behalf of the Law Council of Australia and its constituent bodies on the occasion of your Honour’s appointment to the High Court of Australia.

The Law Council represents 55,000 Australian lawyers, and I’m sure I speak on behalf of every one of them when I congratulate your Honour on this wonderful achievement.

Today, your Honour celebrates another “first day” on the job, and looking back at your career there have been a considerable number of these. From the Redfern Legal Centre; as a “new” barrister in chambers; as a public defender; as counsel; as counsel assisting; as a judge and then as an appellate court judge; and now in this Honourable Court.

On each and every “first day”, there has been a new door to open and new skills to acquire, all the while using the skills you have brought with you and to this place your Honour has brought the skills of listening, of compassion, of questioning, of advocacy and of persuasion, along with a broad and applied knowledge of the law.

As several of your Honour’s strongest supporters have been keen to stress, your proven skills are broad, and your capacity to acquire and demonstrate new skills remarkable. That is why, when a colleague responded to your Honour’s appointment to the Court by sending you a copy of the Australian Constitution with a ‘post-it’ note at Chapter III, section 72 “Judges’ appointment”, inscribed “You are here”, it was a message of congratulations not just to you, but also to those who had the good sense to make the appointment, and to the Australian community who will be well served by all your strengths and abilities.

As many in this courtroom may be aware, a Charter of Rights to benefit everyone in our community has the strong support of the Law Council. We envisage that courts, such as this, will be able to make declarations that legislation is inconsistent with the rights within the Charter.

Given your Honour’s life-long passion for and commitment to the law and social justice, one could not think of a more fitting and able person to sit on the highest court of our land and, hopefully, adjudicate on possible breaches of human rights.

These days the doors into our courts must be secure - but your Honour’s first well-known legal experience of secure doors was with the cell doors of police lockups, remand and sentence prisons. Your Honour’s commitment to the economically and socially disadvantaged members of our community is evidenced by your practise of criminal law. Your advocacy on behalf of your clients was admired by all. Indeed, one trial judge aware of your Honour’s considerable skills is alleged to have remarked that if he had the misfortune to be on trial before a judge, then you would be his counsel of choice.

No doubt there will be changes in criminal law and procedure which your Honour will encounter here from time to time: cases which will not only benefit from your deep knowledge of criminal law, but also the depth of your practical experience in its application both within and without the courts. We have no doubt that your Honour’s expertise in and knowledge of criminal law and procedure will be of considerable benefit to this honourable Court.

One unusual, but revealing aspect of your Honour’s experience was your time in the mid 1990s with the New South Wales Royal Commission into Police Corruption. There you headed a successful team in which your loyalty, fairness and tactical skills were much admired. Your Honour’s team members were investigators and lawyers. It was there, too, that you used yet another door which the media labelled the “roll over door”. A person of interest to the Commission would attend for questioning. They would, in response to carefully crafted lines of questions, commit themselves to a tale of innocence. They would then be invited to wait a moment, whereupon a side door would open, a person would appear, and they knew, as surely as a condemned person on the scaffold knew, that they had tied their own knots and sealed their own fate.

I have said enough on your Honour’s experience - although, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr famously remarked, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience”. Holmes also pointed out that, “The law embodies the story of a nation’s development...it cannot be dealt with as if it contained the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics”.

A welcome aspect of our own nation’s development has been the recognition that gender is not a fit ground upon which to limit opportunity and advancement.

Your Honour is just the fourth woman to join this Court and it is now quite possible during your time here that the majority of members of this Court will be women.

Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, remarked, “Ability hits the mark, where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short”. Your Honour’s abilities have been rightfully and appropriately recognized, and it is certainly a different “judicial world” today than when your Honour commenced practising as a solicitor, when, in New South Wales, there were no female judges on that State’s District or Supreme Courts.

Your ability has been proclaimed by those best equipped to objectively assert it – your peers - and that is why you, and we, can be so confident that in this new job, as a member of another team, going through yet another door, your Honour will enjoy another challenge in your very distinguished legal career.

An appointment to the High Court is an important occasion of enormous significance, both for the appointee and for the nation.

On behalf of the Law Council of Australia, I would like to once again congratulate your Honour on this achievement.

We welcome your appointment and speak on behalf of the whole Australian profession in wishing you a long and distinguished career on this Honourable Court. The Law Council is certain you will excel in your new role.

May it please the Court.

FRENCH CJ: Thank you, Mr Corcoran. Mr Bathurst, President of the Australian Bar Association.

MR BATHURST: May it please the court.

On behalf of the independent Bars of Australia it is my great pleasure to welcome your Honour and congratulate your Honour on your appointment to this court.

Your Honour graduated in Law in 1976, commenced practice as a solicitor and worked for seven years at the Redfern Legal Centre. You started as a volunteer but quickly became one of the key figures at the Centre which was unique for the time in the provision of access to justice to persons who are often desperately in need of it but who would not have had it apart from the Centre.

Even at that time your Honour was a barrister in everything but name. You appeared in countless criminal cases, domestic violence matters, tenancy disputes, small debts, consumer credit work and related areas in which the more disadvantaged members of our society most frequently come in contact with the law. Your reputation grew, particularly in the criminal area, and you rapidly became known as the scourge of the Redfern police. You went to the extent of keeping an eye on them by setting up house immediately opposite the police station. I am told your re-emergence to torment them at the Wood Royal Commission caused a number of them to immediately roll over, to use the vernacular which was in vogue at the time.

As well as exhibiting great forensic skills, your Honour also demonstrated remarkable administrative ability, something rarely found in barristers. Your training of legal aid lawyers at the Centre contributed to its growth from a relatively humble beginning to the powerful force for good it is today. You were also at the time a member of the Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Committee established by the State Government.

Your Honour was called to the Bar in 1984. Frederick Jordan Chambers, whose talent spotting ability is notorious, immediately offered you the room in chambers reserved for female barristers. You occupied it but did not stay for long, again preferring the opportunity to assist the disadvantaged rather than seek the lucrative rewards that the Bar can offer to a person of your ability.

You were appointed a public defender in 1986 and practised at Liverpool. The effect was immediate and startling. Accused persons queued up at Liverpool on the off chance they would get your services. Liverpool police were reduced to the same state as Redfern police in earlier years and most importantly you again trained a group of persons who could carry on the work you undertook in the three years that you were there.

In 1989 you returned to private practice appearing extensively both in trial and in appellate work. Once again you eschewed the more lucrative areas of the Bar to provide outstanding services for those who needed it most. In 1999 you were appointed to the Supreme Court of New South Wales and in 2008 you were appointed a Judge of Appeal. In the period in which you were on the Supreme Court you were one of the driving forces in the Court of Criminal Appeal, one of your finest achievements being an explanation of the manner in which the Criminal Code operated, something which everyone up to that time found quite incomprehensible. Both at first instance and in the brief time in which you were on the Court of Appeal, your Honour showed outstanding ability, not only in criminal matters but also in the civil matters you were called upon to adjudicate. In both areas you made a substantial contribution to the jurisprudence of the court. In his farewell speech, Chief Justice Spigelman set out far more eloquently than I could the benefits which your appointment brought both to the intellectual and collegiate life of the court. It is rare to see the Chief Justice of New South Wales sing opera at a farewell ceremony.

Your Honour’s qualifications and experience make you an outstanding appointment to this court. To the extent that your Honour has to brush up on Farwell on Powers or Fern on contingent remainders, the Bar has no doubt you will do so with ease. The court and the community are fortunate that you have accepted this appointment. We congratulate you and extend to you our best wishes for your term of office.

May it please the Court.

FRENCH CJ: Thank you, Mr Bathurst. Ms Katzmann, President of the New South Wales Bar Association.

MS KATZMANN: May it please the Court.

Until recently there was only one woman on the High Court Bench. Now there are three. The surge appears to be working.

On behalf of the New South Wales Bar, may I congratulate the Federal Government on its decision to offer your Honour the appointment and your Honour on your outstanding achievement. We will miss you, but we will get over it. We are used to sacrifice in New South Wales.

In Verdi’s Rigoletto the Duke of Mantua sings: “La donna è mobile” or “Woman is fickle”. When I learned about your Honour’s appointment I had visions of Chief Justice Spigelman singing the aria to himself in chambers as he rued the loss of one of his finest.

Much has been made of your Honour’s past, considered by some to be an unconventional route to the High Court. Whilst I would not want to deflate the expectations of those who think otherwise, this is, however, no radical appointment. After all, your Honour is a graduate of Sydney University and you were appointed from the bench of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. What is more, your Honour is a stickler for form. You are also deeply conventional. Indeed, you are the most respectable person your friends have ever met!

Above all, your Honour’s ascension to high office has come about as a result of the combination of raw talent and hard work.

Your Honour is an astute judge of personality. You have a great deal of commonsense, a very important attribute in a judicial officer. You also have a genuine humility, an equally important commodity in a judge but often difficult to find. Your humour, which is well known and has led you to becoming a much sought after after-dinner speaker, is frequently self-deprecating. Unlike some other quick wits on the bench, you never use your wit to belittle others, perhaps proving the truth of that old English proverb: “women in mischief are wiser than men”. Your Honour once said that the essence of after-dinner speaking is to be inconsequential. You added, “I’ve always managed that”. I do not think so.

At the Bar your Honour was a marvellous advocate. For many years you were the defence counsel of choice in New South Wales. When you left the Bar soon after taking silk the loss was keenly felt. On the Bench you have applied your broad experience of life, your sound judgment and your fierce intellect. You will bring all those qualities and the same zest for life to this Court as you brought to the New South Wales Supreme Court.

You share with your predecessor on this Bench many characteristics, not least, an empathy for people and a passion for securing justice and protecting the rights of the underprivileged. Like Justice Kirby you are also unfailingly courteous, generous with your time and a prodigious worker.

Yesterday, I referred to Justice Kirby’s decision to be painted in the style of Goya. As a self-described ‘really, really private extrovert’ (that is you, not Justice Kirby), I have some doubts about whether your Honour would consent to having your portrait painted at all. However, if you did, the work of such a modernist like Goya would be a manifestly inappropriate model. As your passion is late medieval art, specifically the art of the Sienese school, I suggest nothing less than a maestà in the style of Duccio. Perhaps the artist could look to the one that hangs in the Kunstmuseum in the Swiss capital, Bern, which features a splendid Madonna and child surrounded by six angels.

I see five of them now.

Your Honour, the New South Wales Bar hails your appointment and wishes you every success in the years to come.

May it please the Court.

FRENCH CJ: Thank you, Ms Katzmann. Justice Bell.

BELL J: Your Honour the Chief Justice of Australia, your Honours, Mr Attorney, Mr Corcoran, Mr Bathurst, and Ms Katzmann, members of the profession, my friends, ladies and gentlemen I am grateful to all of you for your attendance today. I thank each of the speakers for their generous remarks and, in Ms Katzmann’s case; I thank her for her surprising restraint.

I am deeply conscious of the honour of appointment to this Court. It is a great and distinguished Court. Its important functions include that it is the ultimate protector of the liberties of all Australians. In 1923 Sir Isaac Isaacs, speaking of the personal right of an accused person to a fair and impartial trial, described it as being so deeply rooted in our system of law and so elementary that it needed no authority to support it. It was a right he said that inhered in every system of law that made any pretension to civilisation. Generations of Justices of this Court in their faithful exposition of the common law have ensured that in respect of personal liberties we do well on this measure of civilisation. It is a privilege to sit on the same Bench, on this ceremonial occasion, with former Justices who are among the great judges of the modern era. Present today on the Bench are two former Chief Justices of this Court, Sir Anthony Mason and Sir Gerard Brennan, and retired Justices, the Honourable Mary Gaudron, the Honourable Michael McHugh and the Honourable Michael Kirby.

The Court is honoured by the presence of the Chief Justices of the States and the Territories, the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia and the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, the Solicitor-General of the Commonwealth, the Solicitors-General of the States, and the Presidents of many of the Bar Associations and Law Societies.

The Court is also honoured by the presence of members of the Commonwealth Parliament, by you Mr Attorney and Senator Brandis, the Shadow Attorney-General and Senator Faulkner, the Special Minister of State. The Honourable John Hatzistergos, the Attorney-General of New South Wales, also does the Court the honour of attending as does her Excellency Mrs Ortiz de Rosas, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps.

One very senior solicitor who I have known throughout my professional life in a warm letter sent to me after the announcement of my appointment, summed it up: “it’s a long way from Redfern”, and so it is. I take comfort from the presence of many of my colleagues who were involved in the early days of the Redfern Legal Centre here with me today. The Community Legal Centre movement started in Victoria with the establishment of the Fitzroy Legal Service and was followed in New South Wales by the Redfern Legal Centre. From those centres were spawned numbers of others, including many specialist services, all of which have contributed to greater access to justice for disadvantaged members of our community. A few months ago I was invited to launch a report produced by one such Centre, the Intellectual Disability Rights Service of New South Wales; the report addressed the means of diverting people with intellectual disability from the criminal justice system. The ranks of the senior magistracy were represented on that occasion. It was evident that the Service, working co-operatively with the courts, was doing much to make the experience of the law less bewildering for this group of Australians. Today there are many legal centres carrying out work of this kind throughout Australia. It is more than 30 years since a number of us who are here today first worked together at the Redfern Legal Centre - we formed close bonds and we continue to gather together from time to time and today is such an occasion.

At the Bar I was always fortunate to have John Basten, now Justice Basten of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, in the same chambers. He had been at the forefront of the establishment of community legal centres in Australia and was unsurpassed at the Bar in his public law practice. I acknowledged my debt to him at my swearing-in as a judge of the Supreme Court and I do so again today. Also in chambers was Ian Barker QC, another fount of advice, although it must be said, the advice was given with such cryptic economy and often so quietly that I left his room never quite sure that I had grasped it. I am delighted that he and his wife, Penny, are here today.

My almost 10 years on the Bench of the Supreme Court of New South Wales have been intellectually stimulating. I enjoyed the range of the work and found the business of judgment writing satisfying. There is a craft to it, which needs to be learned, and for which, at least in first instance judgment writing, the Bar is not a complete preparation. To those outside the law, and to some within it, judges may be labelled according to whether they are seen to be conservative or progressive or indeed dangerously radical - of course judges have a range of backgrounds and views on social issues - but analyses of this sort take no account of the discipline of judgment writing or, as I have experienced it, the conscientiousness of judges.

The conduct of trials imposes very real burdens on trial judges of which I am well aware and I trust that that awareness will assist me in the discharge of my duties on this Court.

I am grateful to so many of my judicial colleagues for their presence here today. I have made warm friendships throughout the court, even on the equity side. Justice McClellan, the Chief Judge of the Common Law Division, is here today and I thank him - I assume knowing his work habits that he will be sitting a night court to make up for this luxury.

It has been a privilege to be a judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the busiest intermediate Court of Appeal. Its members are very fine appellate lawyers from whose writing and learning I benefited. I am grateful to all of them and delighted that the President of the Court, Justice Allsop, has freed up one tranche of the court to be here. It has been a pleasure coming to know Justice Allsop since he became President of the Court. His practice at the Bar revolved around commercial and shipping cases and so it may not surprise that before his appointment to the Court of Appeal, our paths had not collided. I would like to thank him for all his kindness. He shares, with Chief Justice Jim Spigelman a breadth of intellectual interests and enthusiasm, which I would not presume to describe as catching, but which I have enjoyed watching from the sidelines.

I have been enriched by knowing Chief Justice Spigelman and I am truly grateful for his friendship and support.

Through my involvement with the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration, I have come to meet judicial officers from all over Australia. In 2002, the AIJA brought together a group of judges and magistrates and members of many Aboriginal communities at a splendid conference in Alice Springs, where we discussed the innovations that were just then under way in a number of States and Territories involving circle sentencing and novel approaches to the administration of criminal justice for Aboriginal Australians. It was there that I first met you, Chief Justice. Later, when I was President of the AIJA, I was very grateful to you for giving the keynote address at the Institute’s 25th Annual Conference; an address that drew on your experiences when President of the National Native Title Tribunal in the context of a broader discussion about the recognition of cultural diversity in the work of the courts. I was all the more grateful since you had just flown back to Australia from India and this was a stop-over on the way to Western Australia. This brings me to one disclosure, Chief Justice, unlike you and my eminent predecessor, I am unable to travel long distances by air, and to use that economical American expression, “deplane” and deliver a paper. I believe it is something to do with not having enough melatonin.

This may not be the only respect in which I do not, as some people have suggested I should, fill the shoes of the Honourable Michael Kirby. No one person could do that. I have no doubt that Michael Kirby will continue with his remarkable energy and capacity to contribute to the intellectual life of this country and I join in the sentiments of the speakers who farewelled him in this Court yesterday in wishing him happiness and fulfilment in what I expect will continue to be his very full life from today on.

Mr Bathurst, may I thank you for your advice. I think I have the matter in hand. Justice Heydon and I are old friends and he has been kind enough to lend me his own copy of “Contingent Remainders in a Nutshell”.

When I was first sworn in as a judge, I had the opportunity to publicly express my love and my thanks to my parents, John and Mary Bell. I think everyone in this court will understand, 10 years later what it means to me to have both of them here with me today. My brother, Chris, and I had the benefit of a very happy and secure childhood. The experience of life and the practice of the criminal law have taught me that many members of our community do not have that good luck in life. I have never failed to appreciate it.

I am grateful for the support of my former colleagues and for the warmth of the welcome of my new colleagues and I look forward to sharing in the work of this Court.

FRENCH CJ: The Court will now adjourn until 2.15 this afternoon.

AT 10.56 AM THE COURT ADJOURNED