God botherers' picnic

A few bars of Danny Boy from the attorney general would be a treat for the Anglo lawyers brekka ... Sharp right turn for law and justice policies in NSW ... Greg Smith over-eggs his mandatory sentencing rhetoric ... Polly Peck reports

What a delight to have NSW attorney general Gregory Eugene Smith speaking on Friday (June 10) at a Union, Uni,  Schools and Kindi Club breakfast for the Anglo-Australian Lawyers Society.

Smith is not particularly well known in Anglo circles, being more of a devotee of the Church of Rome and its Right to Life wing, so this will be a good opportunity to hear someone from north of the border.

AALS members will be forking out $53 and guests $65 for the Onion Club brekka, so that surely will entitle them to a few of Smithy's Irish songs, that he is famous for murdering in public on a regular basis.

Maybe the event is a bit of quid pro quo for Betty Windsor's recent stately tour of the Emerald Isle. If the Irish can put up with the Queen, the Anglo lawyers will have to cope with Smith.

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Contrary to popular opinion Greg Smith is not a member of the strange prickly underwear cult Opus Dei, although he is a former president of the NSW chapter of Right To Life.

People may be confusing him with the even more extreme right wing Liberal powerbroker David Clarke, who is much closer to that sect, although strictly speaking not a member. Clarke is termed an Opus Dei "co-operator".

In fact, in 2005 The Sydney Morning Herald apologised to Smith for accusing him of being a member of Opus Dei, being anti-democratic and belonging to a "band of disciples eager to call the shots behind the scenes".

What is now so pleasing is that Clarke, who has a history of calling the shots behind the scenes, is deeply inside Smith's ministerial tent.

The Christian right-winger with the exotic comb-over is not only parliamentary secretary for justice (which comes with an extra $19,000 a year), he's also chairman of the upper house standing committee on law and justice (an additional $9,530 a year).

Tudehope: family manThe cherry on the top is Damien Tudehope, who has been appointed Smith's chief-of-staff.

Tudehope, a Glebe solicitor and father of nine, lost a bitter preselection tussle in Baulkham Hills to pubs lobbyist David Elliott.

State parliamentary journalist Sean Nicholls reports that Tudehope is a former spokesman for the socially conservative Australian Family Association and another member of the Christian right faction of the Liberal party.

Then there's Smith's flack merchant, Michael Pelly - a former journalist with the right-of-the-soup-spoon legal affairs section of The Australian and one-time spinner for the ghastly Philip Ruddock.

If you thought former AG John Hatzistergos was conservative, you haven't seen anything yet.

Premier O'Barrell has consigned law and justice policies to the lunar wing of his party.

Might not it have been prudent to have injected a softer Liberal into the mix in the hope of achieving a tiny bit of balance?

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Nile: bloomingThe Rev. Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party is blooming in this climate.

He has been quick out of the blocks this session with various of his pet projects, including:

• Crimes Amendment (Destruction of Child in Utero - Zoe's Law) Bill 2011;
• Crimes Amendment (Pre-natal Termination) Bill 2011;
• Crimes Amendment (Soliciting Sex for Payment) Bill 2011. 

In principle, the attorney general and his law and justice team would have no difficulty with Nile's agenda.

Shudder.

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NSW attorney general Smith may have tried to tone down the law 'n' order rhetoric before the state election, but he's right in there now with his ears back to ensure that cop killers are cemented for life.

Even though the Crimes Amendment (Murder of Police Officer) Bill is being driven by Police Minister Mike Gallacher, Smithy is on board. Strange that this bold initiative wasn't loudly trumpeted during the election campaign.

Smith was the prosecutor at two trials for the murder of the police officer David Carty in 1997. The only other police officer to have beeen killed recently in NSW was Glenn McEnallay in March 2002.

Smith: blood, sweat and tearsInterestingly, McEnallay's father told The Sydney Morning Herald that he did not think police officers should be treated differently from other murder victims.

However, Smith answered a Dorothy Dixer in parliament that gave the impression that in the Carty case he may have cast aside the prosecutor's obligation for detachment.

"Members might not be aware that I prosecuted two trials in relation to the murder of constable David Carty, one lasted three months and the other for four months. I also conducted the committal hearing. I gave my blood, sweat and tears to that case in honour of that policeman."

Is that what a prosecutor is supposed to do? The prosecutorial guidelines seem to require something a little less zealous.

The attorney general did not spare the parliament the awful details of Carty's death.

"When friends of the attackers came out of the hotel and saw David lying on the ground bleeding to death they virtually hacked him to pieces. They stomped on him, cut off part of his ear and gauged at him. His death was due to a deep stab wound through the sternum, penetrating both the front and back of the aorta. He suffered multiple slash wounds to the head and back, severing part of his nose and his left ear, as well as multiple abrasions and bruising consistent with him being struck repeatedly by a hard-surfaced object, such as a boot, to his head and arms."

Maybe that was designed to put a bit of spine into waverers who are not entirely convinced about the merits of mandatory sentencing.