Carmody update

Collection of gems from Timbo Carmody, CJ-in-Waiting ... Latter-day Albert Piddington? ... Carmody's best lines ... Brief history of the new CJ's long forgotten low points ... NSW barristers say politicalisation of Queensland appointments taints the QC selection system  

Something unpleasant lands in the fruity punch

THE gnashing of teeth about the appointment of Timbo Carmody as Queensland CJ continues apace, with more details about his priors also emerging. 

As one noted Brisbanite put it so delightfully - Carmody's appointment is, "like dropping a turd into the punch bowl". 

Statements critical of the appointment and the conduct of the Qld Conveyancer General have rent the air, including from the Australian Bar Association,  the Law Council of Australia, and the Queensland Law Society, which backtracked on an earlier statement welcoming the new CJ.  

The new Qld bar president, Shane Doyle, wants a judicial appointments protocol to ensure "impartiality and suitability". 

TV screens have been filled with lawyers putting their case: 

Walter (the Cossack) Sofronoff: "It's been a horrible mistake" ...   

 

Former bar prez Peter Davis: "If people can't speak frankly to the attorney general, can he do his job?" ... 



Timbo himself on the ABC TV: "No one knows whether I'm up to it till I've done it." ... 



And on ABC radio: "My record speaks for itself. I couldn't have got where I've got if I didn't have the ability." ...

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We've collected an assortment of Timbo's gems from over the past few days: 

• "I wish I didn't have to knock on [Supreme Court judges'] doors and say, 'Hi, I'm your new chief justice - are we friend or foe. But I will, because that's what leaders do." 

• "It’s regrettable that not one of the Supreme Court judges has congratulated me yet ... I'm surprised and hurt - these are people I’ve known for 30 years, what do they think, I changed colours in the last ten minutes?" 

• "I would've thought of all professions that lawyers would understand and give practical expression to fairness, the fair go. They know what it looks like in the legal books, they know how it's defined, but not all of them know how to extend it when it comes to the practice of it." 

• "They all said I'm a nice bloke, but not up to it ... It would have been nice to get a phone call. Don't they know I've got a family, I've got neighbours, I've got friends who read this about me? - they say 'that's not the guy I know, what do these guys know that I don't' ..." 

• "I need to be close enough [to the government] to do my job. If I had no lines of communication ... if I did not have their respect and their trust then I couldn't perform the function of Chief Magistrate, much less Chief Justice - so you have to have these relationships."

• "If the question is 'Am I too close, and therefore so close to a government that I would sacrifice my personal integrity and ideals to keep them happy?' - no I am not ... I am as far away from them as I need to be." 

• "I've got a lot of support of people who pretty much say: 'don't let the bastards beat you - don't you not do it because somebody else doesn't want you to - you don't know why they don't want you to'." 

• "The other criticism of being too close to government, nobody has defined that for me. How far away are you supposed to be from government? The point is in these jobs you've got to be close to government - and have a good working relationship with them." 

• "I've often said and I'm sure nobody will argue that I may not be the smartest lawyer in the room, and if you were in a room with me and I was the smartest lawyer it would be a good time to leave it. But there's more to being a Chief Justice than a black letter lawyer. There are plenty of them already on the Supreme Court, and I don't aspire to compete with them for intellectual rigour." 

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The Courier-Mail had a story that 35 years ago when working as a labourer at the Katherine meatworks Carmody turned up at the Darwin races and fleeced a bookie. 

He placed a $30 bet at 33/1, but the odds were an error - the real price being 3/1. 

The bookmaker asked for the ticket back but, having an incomplete knowledge of the law of contract and equity, Carmody refused and collected nearly $1,000. 

The newspaper said he was "so pleased with himself he never forgot the nag's name - Munchen". 

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A 2006 decision from an appeal bench of the Family Court has also turned-up, in which Carmody was roasted by Finn, Warnick and May JJ. 

Carmody was a Family Court judge between 2003 and 2008. 

In CCD & AGMD, concerning division of property, he embarked on an "extensive discussion of societal and moral values and principles relating to the alteration of property interests between spouses on marriage breakdown" - all of which went beyond established principles relating to property settlements.   

HH also imported part of another of his judgments, delivered a year earlier, into his reasons that were the subject of the appeal. 

The imported finding of fact related to the evidence in the earlier decision and not to the evidence in the case at hand. 

This is the decision that explains why the CJ-in-Waiting is known as "Cut-and-Paste" Carmody. 

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Piddington: booed off the High Court

Could Carmody be a latter-day Albert Piddington? 

Piddington was appointed to the High Court when Billy Hughes was Commonwealth attorney general in 1913.

Hughes signed him up because he knew Piddington was in favour of expanded Commonwealth powers. 

Albert's appointment was greeted with such a hue-and-cry by the legal profession and the press that he resigned one month after he was appointed, never having sat on the court. 

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The NSW bar is feeling a warm glow of satisfaction about the events in Queensland. 

The question from the magic circle in Phillip Street is, why would you let someone like the Conveyancer General, who plays political favourites so fiercely, appoint QCs? 

It taints the Queen's Counsel selection process to have someone like Bleijie handing out the gongs.

Far better to stick with the SC system, where preferment is confined to the bar itself, and kept well away from the pollies.