Lord Eldon goes Nuttall

Lord Eldon's caustic opinion for a former state government minister ... Adjectives flow thick and fast as the great silk compares barristers' relative positions and status ... From Justinian's archive ... Sir Terence O'Rort reporting in February 2006 

Eldon: "I have not heard of Gageler"

Lord Eldon, trading as Anthony J.H. Morris QC, was on the verge of relevance deprivation when, in the nick of time, he has emerged as meaningful as ever with a caustic opinion for his client Gordon Nuttall, the former minister for health in the Bjelke-Beattie government. 

Eldon's advice on the beastly way the Crime and Misconduct Commission treated the former minister was tabled last week in the Queensland parliament and has been the talk of the town ever since. 

Those who doubted Eldon's mastery of the adjective can rest easy, as this sentence shows: 

"I cannot leave this aspect without expressing the emphatic view that, at least in this respect, the CMC's report is a disgrace - an absolute, positive, stark, unequivocal, clear, unqualified, categorical, decided, unmistakable, unconditional and unmitigated disgrace." 

Nuttall, a former union official with a penchant for sporting a red rose in his lapel, presided over the Dr Death debacle and gave evidence before a parliamentary budget estimates committee about the Bundaberg hospital mess. 

He told gob-smacked committee members that problems about the competency of overseas trained doctors had never been brought to his attention. 

His flow of denials was rudely interrupted by a senior bureaucrat sitting next to him, who told the hearing that the minister had been briefed well before the misadventures of Dr Jayant Patel emerged in public. 

The Crime and Misconduct Commission was called in to investigate whether the Nut had committed any offence by telling pork pies to the parliamentary committee. 

The CMC thought there might have been a breach of s.57 of the Queensland Criminal Code, which says you can get seven years for giving a false answer to the Legislative Assembly or to one of its committees. 

However, the police commissioner found that there was insufficient evidence to charge him with "knowingly giving a false answer". Nonetheless, the Nut resigned from cabinet, insisting he had been "careless" with his words but not "deliberately or knowingly false or misleading". 

To whom does one turn if an injustice chafes? Why, Lord Eldon - the very man who was sent packing from conducting the Bundaberg inquiry on the ground of "ostensible bias". 

Justice Marty Moynihan found that Eldon had been "aggressive ... sarcastic and belittling ... unfair and hostile [and] unfair and accusatory" towards witnesses from Bundaberg hospital. 

In any event, the magnificent silk declared his opinion in support of Nuttall "represents the views of just one person - albeit views based on his "many years' education, training and experience as a barrister and a Queen's Counsel". 

The entire documents reeks of Eldon's trademark modesty. 

His Lordship found it "remarkable" that the CMC accepted the advice of John Logan SC and Stephen Gageler SC in preference to that of Hugh Fraser QC and Bob Gotterson QC (who provided an opinion to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly). 

After all, either Fraser or Gotterson would make it into the list of the "top 10 barristers in Queensland". 

Eldon went on to say that Fraser was "an undisputed expert in issues of parliamentary privilege ... without doubt, nobody in Queensland could claim to have greater expertise in this field". 

A footnote to this sentence adds an important rider:

"Except possibly (and with all due modesty) the present writer." 

Lord Eldon analyses the careers of the relevant barristers on either side of the question. 

"Comparisons are odious and I certainly do not wish to belittle the professional standing of Mr Logan SC. But statistics speak for themselves. Mr Logan is currently number 86 on the Bar Association's list of seniority, compared with 44 in the case of Mr Fraser and 28 in the case of Mr Gotterson." 

Furthermore, Logan has only been a silk for six years while Fraser has had silk for 13 years and Gotterson for 17 years. More devastating statistics. 

"One indication of a senior barrister's professional standing is the rapidity with which he or she was allowed to 'take silk' after commencing practice at the junior bar." 

It is noted that Fraser and Gotterson were "elevated" to the senior bar after 13 years practice as juniors but it took Logan 19 years to make the charmed inner circle. 

Again, there were further priceless footnotes:  

"For comparative purposes, the present writer's position on the list of seniority is just below Mr Fraser's at number 45. Again for comparative purposes, the present writer has (like Mr Fraser) been a QC for 13 years (since 1992). Again for comparative purposes, the present writer 'took silk' after nine years as a junior barrister." 

And you can forget about that fellow Gageler: 

"As to Mr Gageler SC, I have to confess that I had not heard of him prior to this, although my subsequent enquiries suggest that he is held in high regard in Sydney, where he has his chambers. It seems that he has never been admitted in Queensland – or at any rate does not hold a practising certificate in this state. He appears to have been a senior counsel in NSW since 2000." 

Rotten southern cockroach. 

In any event, according to Eldon, Gageler and Logan are wrong. Even if the Nut did give false answers, as a matter of law that could not constitute an offence. 

The prohibition in the criminal code against telling lies to parliament only applies to non-members.

How on earth could it apply to MPs? The whole system of parliamentary democracy would collapse if members were criminally liable for telling untruths. 

Further, Eldon declared that the CMC had no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint, ought never to have considered it and ought not to have published its report. 

We Queenslanders are fortunate to have a barrister of such finesse at 45 in the pecking order. 

Sir Terence O'Rort reporting

Footnote:

In 2009 the Nut was convicted of corruptly receiving secret commissions during his time in office and jailed for seven years. 

The Nut on his way to the nick

A year later he was found guilty of five charges of official corruption and five charges of perjury.

He received a jail term of an additional seven years.

Nuttall has the distinction of receiving the longest term of imprisonment for a corrupt politician in the British Commonwealth.