Hal Wootten

Obituary for Hal Wootten AC QC ... 1922-2021 ... Barrister - Law dean - Judge - Law reform commissioner - Royal commissioner - Press Council chairman - Environmentalist ... Indigenous rights and protections ... The cause of Palestinians ... Lawyer with a wide reach   

John Halden Wootten: a big life, lived fully (pic. UNSW, Sydney)

"Allowing Murdoch to assume control of Australian newspapers was unparalleled outside of totalitarian countries. The Federal Treasurer could stop the takeover if he wanted to ... in this case it is a man who has renounced his citizenship to further his worldwide media power, and who makes no secret of the fact that he intends to make personal use of his control of newspapers." 

So wrote John Halden (Hal) Wootten to The Sydney Morning Herald in December 1986 when resigning as Chairman of the Press Council in protest over Murdoch acquiring the Herald and Weekly Times group to cement what would remain his control of Australian print media. 

Paul Keating was that treasurer. Hal's letter was so illustrative of a deeply principled man. 

Hal died last week at 98, a towering figure of the law, education, conservation, indigenous rights and public affairs. 

He built his reputation as an industrial lawyer, practising at the NSW Bar for nearly 20 years before accepting the challenge of establishing a new Sydney law school at UNSW as Foundation Dean in 1969. 

In that role he fostered a new approach to legal education while at the same time engaging in wider public affairs, particularly as first President of the Aboriginal Legal Service. 

Bob Debus, former NSW Environment Minister and Attorney General described that achievement: 

"Hal had the decency and understanding to gain Aboriginal confidence, the gravity to attract substantial legal professional support and the wider reputation to attract funding support."

At that time he had also worked for the creation of Lawasia, an organisation designed to foster law and justice in Asia and the Western Pacific, becoming its secretary general. 

Many years before, during the 1940s, he had worked in Papua New Guinea and in 1966 had been Chairman of the New Guinea Committee of the Law Council of Australia

In 1973 Hal left UNSW Law School to take up an appointment as a Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, serving with distinction for a decade including becoming Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission and Chancellor of the NSW Institute of Technology. 

In 1983, then in his early 60s he stepped away from the bench and returned to wider public affairs. 

He became Chairman of the Press Council in 1984 until his principled resignation and in 1984 also accepted the position as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, the nation's leading environmental organisation. 

ACF was then in need of resolving difficult internal issues, at the same time leading on the major environmental issues of the time - preservation of native forests and rainforests all over Australia, opposing uranium mining, expanding protected lands, protecting Antarctica and encouraging the setting up of Landcare, a partnership of farmers, government and the environment movement. 

He had a lifelong love of the natural world and a deep concern for the preservation of the natural environment. At ACF he was an engaged and steadying hand, organising the employment as Director of the charismatic Phillip Toyne whom Hal had met in Central Australia, and guiding ACF in maintaining and strengthening constructive relations with government. 

Together they led ACF in one of the most important periods of environmental achievement in Australia. They would remain close personal friends until Toyne's untimely death. 

When the scourge of indigenous deaths in custody was finally confronted, Hal was appointed in 1986 as one of five Royal Commissioners. Of that time, his fellow Commissioner, now Senator Patrick Dodson said: 

"He showed a deep understanding of the factors which underlay the crisis of Indigenous incarceration - a crisis which remains unabated 30 years on. I much appreciated his fundamental humanity, his sympathy for grieving families and his critical analysis of historical and legal processes."

His commitment to indigenous affairs continued with his 1992 report under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protection Act recommending that the ill-conceived lake near Alice Springs (Mparntwe) not be permitted to proceed and destroy indigenous sacred places. Then followed a period as a deputy president of the Native Title Tribunal from 1994.

At this time he became involved in the cause of the Palestinians and having lived in Ramallah for a period, he continued to advise and support two law schools in Palestine, organising for their deans to visit Australian law schools. Hal also sponsored the Sydney based Palestinian Film Festival which promotes justice for Palestine.

This active commitment remained for the rest of his life as did his dedication to indigenous issues and the environment movement. 

In 2010, at the age of 88, he joined a group of Aboriginal leaders in a visit to marginalised communities and prisons in the Philippines to study alternative methods of development and incarceration.

He was Patron of the NSW Environmental Defenders Office until 2018.

A lawyer to the last, a few weeks ago in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic  when he was visited by a legal friend and colleague decades his junior, Hal looked up smiling to ask: 

"Under what exception to the Public Health Order are you entitled to be here?" 

He will be deeply missed by those of us privileged to have enjoyed his warm personal friendship and sharp intellect over many years.

Hal Wooten's funeral on Friday August 6, 2021 at 11am can be live streamed at https://vimeo.com/581097826/8a7bb30320

Bruce Donald AM
Neil Williams SC
Andrew Chalk