Gideon Haigh

A new book on H.V Evatt, the lawyer, judge and politician, from author and journalist Gideon Haigh ... Exploration of Evatt's dissent in the great nervous shock case Chester v Council of the Waverley Municipality ... What on earth were the other High Court judges thinking? ... Great turning points in law, politics and history ... With some fine attitudes we find Gideon Haigh on Justinian's Couch 

 

Gideon Haigh has been a journalist for almost four decades, published more than 40 books and contributed to more than 100 newspapers and magazines. 

His books include The Cricket Wars, The Summer Game and On Warne (which won numerous prizes) and works on BHP, James Hardie and how abortion became legal in Australia. 

His book The Office: A Hardworking History won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction. He has appeared widely on radio and TV. He lives in Melbourne.

Describe yourself in three words. 

Sceptical. Ascetic. Puny.

What are you currently reading? 

"The Spectre of Alexander Wolf" by Gaito Gazdanov. Just finished "The Broken House" by Horst Kruger, which I loved. 

What is your favourite film?

"Fail Safe." Not the best, simply my favourite.

What is your favourite piece of music? 

"Totally Wired" by The Fall. 

Who has been the most influential person in your life, and why? 

My mother. Because she's my mother. 

Why did you want to become a journalist? 

I didn't. I just had no interest in going to university, and it seemed like a fun thing to do until something else came along. Which it never did. 

Why did you decide to write about H.V Evatt? 

I've always been interested in Evatt, because among Australian political figures he's sui generis - a true intellectual in a country that routinely despises them.  But I wasn't sure how until I learned of his dissent in Chester v The Council of the Municipality of Waverley, which I found interesting on a host of levels, including some that offered glimpses of his mercurial personality. 

In what way is your focus different from previous biographies of Evatt? 

Biographers are naturally drawn to Evatt's legacy of electoral failure and political schism. I've concentrated on an earlier Evatt, when he was a liberal lion and a public intellectual avant la lettre. I'm only a layman, but his dissent in Chester is both wonderfully ingenious and warm-hearted. 

Published by Simon & SchusterWhat is your assessment of Evatt as (a) a lawyer, (b) a judge and (c) a politician? 

Fiercely ambitious and individualistic in all three fields of endeavour, with entailments to match. 

And what do you make of him as a human being? 

Contradictory. He had a genuinely happy home life, was capable of enormous, impulsive generosity. Into others he lacked insight. But as a mother's son, he had an instant sympathy for Golda Chester in her loss. I don't think there's a judgement like it, with that sense of a judge stepping down from the bench to commune with a citizen in their suffering, while maintaining the finely-honed critical faculties necessary for justice to be done. 

Was he too brilliant for his own good? 

It is almost a shame he did not, as he briefly wished, return to the bench after the election of the Menzies government in 1949. Australian politics was too narrow for his broad gauge mind, and opposition too stifling for his ambition. 

How does his legacy stand now, do you think? 

It's diffuse, as he was himself. But there are genuinely towering moments. 

How long did you spend researching and writing "The Brilliant Boy - Doc Evatt and the Great Australian Dissent"?  

Started towards the end of 2018, in a very different world! 

What is your next project? 

I've written a history of Victoria's Parliament House. 

Who do you admire professionally? 

Ramachandra Guha. 

What is your favourite website? 

Trove. 

What words or phrases do you overuse? 

Obdurate.   

What is your greatest weakness? 

Obduracy. 

If you were on death row, what would be your request for your last meal? 

My mother's soup. 

If you were a foodstuff, what would you be? 

Muesli. 

What human quality do you most distrust? 

Charm. 

What would you change about Australia? 

Ill fares the land ... 

Who, or what, do you consider overrated? 

So. Fucking. Much. Ninety-five per cent of everything should be written down twenty-five per cent. 

 What would your epitaph say? 

"Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad."

What comes to mind when you shut your eyes and think of the word "law"? 

Expense.