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TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

O/N H-1014784

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

CEREMONIAL SITTING OF THE FULL COURT

FOR THE WELCOME OF

THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE SNADEN

THE HONOURABLE JAMES ALLSOP AO, CHIEF JUSTICE
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE GREENWOOD
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE RARES
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE BESANKO
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE MIDDLETON
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE McKERRACHER
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE BROMBERG
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE MURPHY
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE DAVIES
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE BEACH
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE MOSHINSKY
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE O’CALLAGHAN
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE STEWARD
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE WHEELAHAN
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE ANASTASSIOU
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE O’BRYAN
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE SNADEN

MELBOURNE

9.33 AM, MONDAY, 29 APRIL 2019
ASSOCIATE:   Presentation of commission and swearing in of the Honourable Justice Snaden.

SNADEN J:   Chief Justice, I have the honour to announce that I have received a commission from His Excellency the Governor-General appointing me a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia.  I now present my commission.

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you, Justice Snaden.  District Registrar, would you please read the commission aloud.

DISTRICT REGISTRAR:  Commission of appointment of a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia.  I, General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Counsel under section 72 of the Constitution and subsection 6, paragraph (1) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 appoint John Leslie Snaden to be a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia assigned to the Melbourne Registry commencing on 29 April 2019 until he attains the age of 70 years.  Signed and sealed with the Great Seal of Australia on 21 February 2019.  Peter Cosgrove, Governor-General, By His Excellency’s Command, Christian Porter, Attorney-General.

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you.  Justice Snaden, I now invite you to take the Affirmation of Office.

SNADEN J:   I, John Leslie Snaden, do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, that I will well and truly serve Her in the Office of Judge of the Federal Court of Australia and that I will do right to all manner of people according to the law without fear or favour, affection or ill will. 

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you.  I now invite you to subscribe to the form of affirmation you’ve just taken.  District Registrar, would you take the commission and the affirmation for subscription in the records of the Court.  Justice Snaden, congratulations.

SNADEN J:   Thank you, Chief Justice.

ALLSOP CJ:   And welcome to the Court.  And on behalf of everyone – all the Judges of the Court and all the Registrars and staff of the Court – I wish you a fruitful and happy stay on the Court.

SNADEN J:   Thank you, Chief Justice.

ALLSOP CJ:   May I welcome everyone to the Court, in particular, may I acknowledge the President of the Senate, Senator the Honourable Scott Ryan, and Helen Stitt, his partner;  Justice Gordon of the High Court;  Chief Justice Alstergren;  Judges of the Family Court, Federal Court, Federal Circuit Court and the Supreme 
Court and Fair Work Commission; and all the family and friends of Justice Snaden.  The Honourable Kelly O’Dwyer, representing the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth.

THE HON K. O’DWYER MP:   May it please the Court.  It is a great privilege to be here today to congratulate your Honour on your appointment as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. I’m attending this ceremony today as the representative of the Attorney-General, the Honourable Christian Porter MP.  He has asked that I convey the Government’s very best wishes and sincere thanks for your Honour’s willingness to serve as a judicial officer and he notes and trusts that you will have a long and illustrious career on the bench.

Your Honour’s appointment to this Court is another significant achievement in an already distinguished career.  The presence of numerous members of the judiciary and the legal profession here today is a testament to the high esteem in which your Honour is held and the respect that you have earned over the course of your career.  May I particularly acknowledge the current and former members of the judiciary, members, of course, of the legal profession and also the President of the Senate, Scott Ryan.  

It is a special day and it is fitting that your wife, Fiona, and your two children, Chloe and Tom, are present here today to proudly share in this occasion with you.  Your mother, Monica, and father, Les, are also present here today; your sister Meredith, brother-in-law, Andrew, and his partner, Paula, are also in attendance all the way from WA.  I must acknowledge at the outset that your Honour’s appointment to this Court signals another step in what has been an already impressive career.

Your expertise and extensive experience in industrial and employment law, and the strong work ethic for which you are known, make you a worthy addition to the bench.  Your peers comment that your Honour was not going to be completely satisfied with progressing at a law firm or even going to the Bar.  Your aspirations were to hone and development your skills so that one day you might be considered for judicial appointment. Well, today marks the day that your aspirations are fulfilled.

During your Honour’s early years of schooling in Perth, Western Australia, you displayed a sharp and inquisitive mind.  Having achieved excellent marks throughout your schooling, your Honour turned your mind to studying the theory and practice of law at university, commencing a double Bachelor Degree in Law and Commerce at the University of Western Australia in 1993.  Your Honour’s drive to succeed and your commitment to hard work became evident in your early days at university, where you also worked at a local pizza parlour to support your education.

Your Honour has had quite the journey from delivering pizzas to shortly delivering judgments.  Your Honour later worked nights as a taxi driver while your fellow students were engaged in other pursuits.  Demonstrating the values that your parents instilled in you from an early age, you followed in the footsteps of your father and grandfather, who both drove taxis for a living.

Also noteworthy is that your Honour developed a strong interest in and passion for employment and industrial relations law after undertaking a constitutional law subject.  Indeed, I understand that your strong interest in university life and social activities resulted in you giving evidence to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education Legislative Committee as it inquired into proposed changes to higher education.  In an exchange with members of the committee about what impact compulsory versus voluntary unionism might have had on the social activities of university students, your Honour’s answer, as always, was evidence-based and expressed succinctly.  Your response was that neither form of unionism had a discernible impact on your alcohol intake.

Your drive to go further saw your Honour make the road trip across the Nullarbor to move to the Industrial Law heartland here in Melbourne.  At the beginning of your Honour’s career in Melbourne, Victoria, you grew your reputation as a logical and disciplined thinker.  Having commenced your career as an articled clerk with the industrial relations firm Tanya Cirkovic & Associates, your Honour was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2000.  

Even as an articled clerk, you had an impact on the obligations of the judiciary.  While reviewing a case being conducted by the firm, you formed a view that an important legal issue deserved to be raised in the High Court.  You proceeded to convince counsel, the Honourable Richard Tracey QC, and the client of this whilst still an articled clerk.  The case ultimately proceeded to the High Court, and the firm’s client was unanimously successful.  Interestingly, the case involved the Victorian Supreme Court’s denial of leave to appeal against a decision of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.  In denying leave and in accordance with established practice, the primary Judge gave no reason for her decision.  

The High Court held that the practice of declining to give reasons was unwarranted.  Justice Kirby said that he only need state the facts to appreciate how unsatisfactory the law would be if the challenged judgment was affirmed.  He said that ordinarily in Australia, judicial officers are bound to give reasons appropriate to the circumstances for any formal determination of the right of parties before them.  He said that the duties devolved on judicial officers in the country are clear.  In part, those duties arise from the nature and incidence of the judicial office.  In part, they arise from the ordinary entitlement of parties.  Your Honour knew that as an articled clerk, but it took an appeal to the High Court to have this principle affirmed.

Your Honour then moved to the workplace relations team at Clayton Utz in 2002, first as a solicitor and then senior associate where you worked on many large, complex and high profile industrial and employment law matters for some of Australia’s largest and best-known employers.  Your work in this area has ranged across all major jurisdictions including the High Court, Federal Court and Supreme Court, and spanned a number of industries including construction, mining, transport, health, broadcasting and communications, and academia.

Quickly becoming a go-to lawyer for clients at Clayton Utz, your Honour developed a reputation for high-quality advice.  Your Honour was called to the Bar in 2005 after establishing yourself as an authority in employment and industrial relations law.  A rising star in the Victorian legal profession, your Honour has been briefed in many high-profile industrial disputes.  This includes the Victorian International Container Terminal dispute, the Country Fire Authority dispute, the Victorian Ambulance Paramedics arbitration, Boral Concrete’s contempt proceedings against the CFMEU, the Metro Trains bargaining dispute case, the Grocon blockade of central Melbourne and the Victorian nurses dispute.

You may not have made friends in the Australian Public Service having successfully defended the practice of hot-desking at the ATO, but it was, indeed, an important principle to defend.  You recently managed to achieve the cancellation of industrial action by Court security officers in your home state of WA, and you were able to achieve the upholding of a strict no alcohol policy during lunchbreaks at a large retail company.  Some of these precedents may be appreciated and some less so, but that is the nature of your role as counsel in the practical field of workplace relations.

Your Honour always recognised the importance of evidence, tendering on one occasion a 20-centimetre wide piece of open cut dragline cable sheared off as a result of a dismissed employee’s unsafe work practice.  This piece of evidence later had pride of place on your desk in your chambers and hopefully has made its way into your chambers here.  Your Honour has consistently been recognised as a leading employment and workplace health and safety counsel in Doyle’s Guide.

Turning to your Honour’s personal qualities, you are known for your naturally shrewd and analytical mind, but your Honour is not only admired for your incisive intellect but for your loyal, humble and down-to-earth nature as well.  It has been observed that your Honour is meticulous about detail and exceedingly precise about your use of language.  This attribute is aptly demonstrated by the expertise you have developed on the use of apostrophes in the English language.  This may serve as a timely warning for counsel to double-check their submissions before handing them up to the Bench.  

I understand that your Honour possesses an optimistic faith in the potential of the law to resolve legal controversies between parties.  Your colleagues and friends observe that you will make an excellent Judge because of your forensic and astute ability to examine both sides of an issue and consider different points of view before arriving at a considered decision.

As to your Honour’s hobbies and talents outside of the law, I understand your interests include music and football.  Your Honour is known as a gifted musician and has the extraordinary ability to pick up any musical instrument and play songs on request; however, your Honour’s tendency to also think that you are a gifted singer is open to argument.  Anyone who has met your Honour knows that you are a fan of the musical group, Guns N’ Roses; in particular, their hit song of the 1980s, Sweet Child o’ Mine which, tragically, has become your ringtone.  A follower of the AFL, your Honour attends the Grand Final every year.  As an avid supporter of the West 
Coast Eagles Football Club, it is perhaps fitting that your Honour’s appointment to the Bench follows the success of your team in last year’s Grand Final.

In concluding, your Honour’s appointment to this Court is a testament to your hard work, talent, and commitment to justice and the rule of law.  I have no doubt that you will serve as a Judge of this Court with a strong work ethic, rigour and humility for which you are so admired.  Your Honour’s personal style is perhaps your greatest asset.  Despite the adversarial nature of the field of law in which you specialised, your personal style is not adversarial.  Your success in the law to date has been in large part because of your dispassionate presentation of the law and the facts.

Your approach reflects Justice Kirby’s dicta that “stating the facts compels the result”.  That is why your elevation to deciding cases is such a small step for your Honour.  While your Honour has many attributes to support your appointment to the Bench, your intellect, integrity and discipline will make you an outstanding addition to this Court.  On behalf of the Government and the Australian People, I extend my sincerest congratulations to you.  

May it please the Court.

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you.  Dr Collins, President of the Victorian Bar.

DR M. COLLINS QC:   May it please the Court.  

I appear on behalf of the Australian Bar Association and the Victorian Bar to congratulate your Honour on your appointment to this Court.  Could I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders past and present.  Your Honour was born in Melbourne, moving to Western Australia as a small child.  You were educated at Hawker Park Primary School and Craigie Senior High School, where you graduated in 1992 before undertaking law and commerce degrees at the University of Western Australia, where you majored in general management, before graduating in 1998.

You were the first in your family to study law, and you pursued it in the belief that it was a solid degree that could provide the foundation for your future career path.  After graduating, your Honour secured articles with Tanya Cirkovic & Associates with Tanya Cirkovic, now Commissioner Cirkovic of the Fair Work Commission, who I think is in Court today.  You spent your first years as a solicitor developing a specialisation in industrial relations law.  Your Honour was drawn to industrial relations law having enjoyed the subject at university and achieving a high mark.  Your Honour believes that industrial relations is an area of law that has the capacity to make a difference in the lives of many.

Following a short time at Clayton Utz, your Honour came to the Bar in 2005.  You read with Stuart Wood AM QC, who joins us at the Bar table today.  You chose to come to the Bar at a fortuitous time for one practicing in the field of industrial relations and employment law.  It was the eve of the Work Choices Legislation coming into force, giving rise to challenging and interesting work.  After a change of government, there was then the equally challenging and interesting enactment of the Fair Work Act of 2009, a substantial change to the legal landscape in IR.

Very quickly, your Honour became recognised as one of the best juniors in the field.  Your Honour’s client list covered the field on the employer side, with both State and Federal Governments, and large corporations regularly briefing you.  You have the rare ability to sit on both sides of the political fence, briefed by governments of all persuasions in a jurisdiction that is inherently political.  Your Honour has been described as bullish as to legal principle.  As counsel, you were a jurist in the true sense, focusing on the exact words deployed in a judgment to highlight where a statement of obiter relied on by the other side had not been correctly interpreted.  You were never shy of an argument, pursuing your points forcibly but without animus.

You have been described as extremely hardworking, so much so that you had to hand back around 30 briefs upon taking this appointment, resulting in a couple of your peers disappearing from social circles over the last couple of months under the weight of your former workload.  Stuart Wood bumped into one such peer recently and asked him, “Why haven’t I seen you around for so long?”  The response was that he was snowed under with your Honour’s former briefs.  A former instructor recalls that briefing your Honour was a relaxing experience, knowing that the client was in very good hands and that you would be well prepared.  There was never any concern of missing a deadline if you had been briefed in the matter.

Your Honour has a meticulous nature, particularly as the Minister has pointed out, with respect to language and grammar.  One of your leaders described your written work as the best he had ever seen, which it makes it surprising that your attention to detail and preparedness was absent on one particular occasion.  Your Honour was briefed in a large matter where an urgent injunction was to be sought in Brisbane.  On the walk across to the Federal Court, the senior barrister who was leading you turned to you and said, “Where are your robes?”  Your Honour’s face was a picture of abject horror upon the realisation that you had forgotten that robing is required for interlocutory hearings in Queensland.  Fortunately, the Senior Barrister’s reader had a similar stature to that of your Honour and kindly lent you his robes.  

Your Honour was a rare creature at the Bar, in that your practice was conducted almost entirely electronically.  You spent a lot of time experimenting with different technologies, trying to find the best way to make them work for you, for your clients and for the Courts and tribunals in which you appeared.  This love of technology extends to your home, where you build and rebuild media centres and sound systems, striving to achieve the best acoustic result to indulge your love of mediocre music.  

Your Honour has a passion for driving European cars, but I’m told there’s nobody in the country who knows more about the entire history of the Holden Commodore than your Honour.  Your encyclopaedic knowledge of trivia extends to other similarly useful topics:  passenger aircraft, Guns N’ Roses, and the long-running television show The Simpsons.  Apparently, there’s a Simpsons reference for just about every life situation.  Now, I can’t profess a particular knowledge of The Simpsons, but I have conducted some research, and that research revealed that there are two resident Judges on the show:  Judge Roy Snyder and Judge Constance Harm.  

Judge Snyder started off as a no-nonsense Judge incensed by the incompetent attorney Lionel Hutz, who repeatedly runs over the Judge’s son in his car.  Judge Snyder has softened a bit over the years.  Sometimes he lets Bart off the hook with unimpeachable legal reasoning:  “Boys will be boys.”  Judge Harm, on the other hand, was reportedly modelled on the reality TV Judge, Judge Judy, and has a tough-as-nails approach towards the dispensing of justice, sometimes sentencing offenders to being placed in the stocks in public and keeping a model guillotine on the bench alongside her gavel.  I hope your Honour might take your inspiration for life on the Bench from somewhere else.  

Your Honour is a dedicated family man.  Your wife, Fiona, and your two children – Chloe, who’s nine, and Thomas, who is six – are all here in Court today.  They are the bedrock of your career and your greatest supporters.  Your Honour’s love of AFL football, particularly the West Coast Eagles, borders on the fanatical.  Fortunately, this is shared by Chloe and Thomas.  In fact, you’ve combined your love of travel with your love of football, regularly travelling to watch the Eagles play, whether in Perth or elsewhere.  For the last three years, you and Chloe have made an annual pilgrimage by road to Adelaide to watch the Eagles play – a tradition that she will no doubt cherish as she gets older.  I am told, though, that your son, Thomas, has worked out how to take advantage of your one-eyed obsession with the Eagles.  He has worked out that if he wants to watch TV, all he has to do is to ask to watch your recording of last year’s Grand Final.  It works every time.  Sorry, Thomas.

On the subject of football, your Honour might recall a longstanding wager with a former instructor of yours, Anna Casellas, a partner at Clayton Utz in Perth who’s in Court today, and who barracks for the Eagles’ arch rivals, the Fremantle Dockers.  She describes you as – and I quote – “an annoying and smug Eagles supporter”, particularly since the Grand Final win last September.  10 years ago, she made a bet with your Honour that Fremantle would win a Grand Final before the Eagles, with the loser having to shout the winner a very expensive lunch at an exclusive restaurant.  She says that you became particularly nervous in 2013, when Freo made the Grand Final, and apparently your Honour tried to enter into some serious negotiations in a futile attempt to hedge the bet.  Fortunately for you, the Dockers lost.  

Well, here we are in 2019.  The Eagles are the reigning champions, and Ms Casellas’s debt is yet to be settled.  But might I be so bold as to offer your Honour some unsolicited advice:  in light of your new job, perhaps it would be wise to relieve Ms Casellas of her obligation to pay up.  Ms Casellas, you’re welcome.  

On behalf of the Australian Bar Association and the Victorian Bar, I congratulate your Honour, and I wish you long, satisfying and distinguished service as a Judge of this Court.  May it please the Court.

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you, Dr Collins.  Mr Amendola, representing the Law Council of Australia and the Law Institute.

MR S. AMENDOLA:   May it please the Court, I appear on behalf of the Law Council of Australia and the Law Institute of Victoria to congratulate your Honour Justice Snaden on your appointment to the Court.  Before I say anything more, how could anyone describe Sweet Child o’ Mine as mediocre music?  I’m not sure, but, anyway.  

Your Honour commenced your career with the Melbourne-based industrial relations firm, Tanya Cirkovic & Associates, and the principal of the firm at the time is now Commissioner Cirkovic, who I understand is in attendance today.  

The Minister made reference to a particular case that went all the way to the High Court, in which you were particularly involved.  I had a look at the special leave application because it was a bit of a tortured path.  It went to VCAT.  There was an application for leave to appeal on a question of law to the trial division of the Supreme Court of Victoria.  Leave was refused; no reasons were given.

There was an appeal.  That appeal was dismissed, but your client and your Honour were very persistent and made an application for special leave to the High Court.  The transcript of the special leave application, when one takes away the Court heading and the announcement of appearances, is about a page and a half, and it starts like this.  Mr Tracey, who was a distinguished Judge of this Court, announced his appearance.  Justice McHugh said:

We think we might call on your opponent, Mr Tracey.

Mr Tracey said:

If the Court pleases.

Justice McHugh said:

Yes, Mr Berglund.  Why should not leave be granted in this case?

Mr Berglund went for about a minute and a half.  Justice McHugh then asked Mr Tracey a question about utility.  In the midst of that answer, Justice McHugh said:

We need not hear from you any further.  There will be a grant of special leave in this case.

And on the appeal, the decision of the Court of Appeal was overturned five-nil.  The proceeding commenced at 10.55 am and concluded at 11 am.  It’s a great testament to your Honour’s view about the manner in which the law ought to be interpreted.  

Your Honour then worked at Clayton Utz for a while before going to the Bar in 2005.  At the Bar, your Honour had an extensive national practice that spanned all areas of employment and industrial relations across Courts such as the High Court, this Court, the various Supreme Courts, various State administrative tribunals and different emanations of the Federal Industrial Tribunal.  

I’ve had occasion to brief your Honour, despite the fact that you’re a member of the West Coast Eagles.  Your Honour has always had a very clear-eyed view about the relative strengths and weaknesses of a matter that’s brought to you by solicitors, and you always express yourself very concisely; and, as has been said today, you have a very fastidious way about you and great attention to detail.

As a solicitor, I can attest to how easy it was to brief your Honour and deal with your Honour.  I would have liked to have briefed your Honour more, but your Honour had a very, very busy practice at the Bar, and it was not always easy to be able to brief you.  I understand that, in terms of that fastidiousness, since the Grand Final last year your Honour fastidiously discusses the West Coast Eagles-Collingwood Grand Final, often with Collingwood supporters, for which your Honour should really be congratulated.  

The strong work ethic, clear-eyed view, conciseness and attention to detail will serve your Honour well on the Bench.  Judicial appointment is a great honour, and it must be a source of great pride for you, your wife, your children and your family to have been appointed to this prestigious and hard-working Court.  

On behalf of the Law Council of Australia and the Law Institute of Victoria, I wish your Honour a long, distinguished and satisfying service as a Judge of this Court.  

May it please the Court.

ALLSOP CJ:   Thank you, Mr Amendola.  Justice Snaden.

SNADEN J:   Thank you, Chief Justice.  Chief Justice Allsop, Justice Gordon, Chief Justice Alstergren, Senator the Honourable Scott Ryan, the Honourable Kelly O’Dwyer MP, Bridget Vallence MP, Judges and former Judges, both of this Court and others, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:  it’s an honour to have been appointed a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia, and I’m grateful to all of you for having turned up in number today to mark the occasion, and particularly so to those of you who have travelled to be here, as many have.  By your presence this morning, you do the Court and me a great honour.

It is, in particular, a thrill for me to have my friend, the Minister for Women and the Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations, the Honourable Kelly O’Dwyer MP, here to address the Court.  I’m indebted to you today, Minister, as, equally, I’m indebted to you, Dr Collins, and you, Mr Amendola, for the generous and flattering and, in the spirit of the event, sporadically misleading words that all of you have chosen to mark the occasion.  

In an article published on 29 September last year – coincidentally, the same day that the West Coast Eagles won their fourth and most memorable premiership – The Australian newspaper printed some excerpts from a speech given by former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon, in which his Honour described the comments by which new Judges are typically welcomed when sworn in as – I quote – “oleaginous and grovelling speeches in their own praise”.  With respect to his Honour, those are not the adjectives that I would use to describe what I’ve heard this morning, but, by the same token, I don’t feel at all let down.  
Indeed, I am sincerely moved by the lengths to which all speakers have gone to paint me as significantly more interesting than, in truth, I am.  

I had wondered how they would do that.  A little over a year ago, I sat in this room as my colleague, Justice Steward, was sworn in.  During a ceremony similar to this one, the presenters spoke of his Honour’s encyclopaedic knowledge of English and Second World War History and his renowned appreciation for fine art and antique furniture.  In the last couple of weeks, I’ve reflected upon my own interests and what might be said of them, and I’ve been led to the realisation – as I have no doubt that, by now, all present today have been – that they are decidedly less worldly.  Where his Honour has sophistication and scholarship, I have football, animated sitcoms and hair metal super-bands of the late eighties and early nineties.  

Those who know me well will know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I am a proudly uncomplicated man, the product of an equally uncomplicated upbringing.  It’s a delight for me to have present in Court today my parents, Monica and Les, and my youngest sister, Meredith.  Like most who assume judicial office, I owe a great deal to my folks.  My family is not a family of the law and there was little to my upbringing that foretold a career in the law, much less a commission to serve on this Court.  As the only lawyer in the family, my career over the years has largely been foreign to my folks, as is this environment this morning.  Indeed, today is my mother’s first time in a courtroom; and, mum, I should hope that it’s apparent that it’s not always quite like this.

All the same, my family has been a tremendous grounding force in my life, always there to help celebrate the achievements when they occurred; but equally always there to make sure that I never forgot from where it was that I came, and to ensure that I was able to laugh at myself when circumstances warranted it, as they often did and continue to.  Mum and dad, in particular, shaped me more than they know, even after I left Perth, more than two decades ago now, to pursue this foreign life on the other side of the country.  From dad, I learned the value of hard work.  From mum, the importance of treating everyone equally and never taking myself too seriously.  My appointment to this Court is beyond anything that my parents ever envisaged for me but it’s a product of my upbringing, characterised by their persistent belief that with hard work and perseverance, I could achieve; a belief that they never once polluted with any burden of expectation.  I can’t properly thank them for that but it’s a source of great satisfaction for me to know the pride that they take in my appointment.

Professionally, I’ve been no less fortunate, having as a younger man worked alongside some of the finest solicitors in my chosen field of industrial relations and employment law.  I’m thrilled to see in Court today, Tanya Cirkovic, to whom I was articled, now Commissioner Cirkovic of the Fair Work Commission, as well as many colleagues from what were for me very happy and formative days at Clayton Utz.  I was fortunate to there work alongside – and later to be briefed by – some of the biggest names in the field, with many of whom I enjoy lasting friendships.  I’m honoured that many of them have sacrificed some of their valuable time to be here today.

In addition to the solicitors from whom I learned so much, I was fortunate also to learn a great deal from my colleagues, particularly from senior colleagues, at the Industrial Bar and the Bar more generally.  Over the years, I had the great fortune to be briefed in some of the biggest and best industrial law matters, with some of the biggest and best of the Industrial Bar.  Names like Richard Tracey, formerly of this Court, Frank Parry, Rachel Doyle, Chris O’Grady and in recent years Steve Moore, now Justice Moore of the Victorian Supreme Court, for whose presence here this morning, I’m additionally grateful.  All of those are modern giants of the Industrial Bar from whom I not only learned a great deal but, more importantly, drew inspiration in shaping my own career and my own approach to legal practice.  I’m grateful to all of them.

Speaking of giants, I acknowledge the influence on my career of my former pupil master, Stuart Wood AM QC, who’s also in Court today.  I was Stuart’s first reader and the first junior with whom he was regularly briefed before he took silk and, indeed, after he took silk.  As any senior member of the Bar will know, that experience of appearing with juniors is invariably both profitable and enjoyable; but it was one that Stuart seemed to find particularly agreeable, as was often made apparent by the mountain of tasks that he routinely rained down upon those whom he led.  He was and, so many of his juniors will tell you, remains one of the most uncompromising and demanding silks of the Victorian Bar.  He’s also the most generous person that I know.  I spent nearly two decades benefiting from that generosity and my career would not have been anything like what it has without it.

In more recent times, as my practice matured, fortune continued to smile upon me as I was briefed to lead some of the future giants of the Industrial Bar, by whose talents and industry I was undeservedly spoilt.  Again, I’m privileged to see many of them here in Court this morning.  

I should also mention my appreciation for those barristers that I regularly appeared against.  The Industrial Bar is a polarised place, perhaps needlessly so.  Both sides boast an oversupply of talent, and I was always keen to and did learn not just from those that I worked with but also those that I worked against, some of whom again to my delight are here in Court today.  

My former assistant, Shannon Lyon, is another to whom I must partially credit the ride here that I’ve had.  Shannon resigned from her role the day before she and the rest of Level 22 Aickin Chambers learned of my appointment.  Her resignation was easily the bigger news story in chambers that week.  I wasn’t able to persuade Shannon to consider a career at the Court, so she embarks upon the next phase of her life with my sincerest gratitude and affection.  

I’ve spoken of the influence of family and of the array of colleagues with whom I’ve been fortunate to work over the years, but, with respect to them, their contribution to the trajectory of my life pales against that of my wife, Fiona.  I’ve enjoyed a degree of success in my life, but perhaps my greatest triumph was convincing Fi that she should marry me.  When I did so, I said nothing of the protracted periods of singular preoccupation with work that so often typify even a moderately successful practice at the Bar.  Like all barristerial spouses, Fi has assumed a responsibility for the management of our household and our children that’s far greater than anything I can 
defend, all the while maintaining her own career and answering the often excessive challenges that it throws her way.  Truly, I am beyond fortunate to have her in my life.  She makes me better than I deserve to be.

These next words I address to my children, Chloe and Tom, who, if I may say, have done an excellent job of sitting quietly throughout what I can only imagine they regard as a series of very boring speeches about their equally boring dad.  You are both too young to fully appreciate why it is that such a fuss has been made of me today; too young to properly understand why it is that all of these people are here, being so nice to me.  It is a tremendous privilege that I now have that, in time, you will come to understand.  In the meantime, I would like you to understand this:  as great as it is, the honour that I now have of being a Judge is nothing compared to the honour that I have every day of being your dad.  I hope that my work here will make you proud of me.  I intend to work very hard to ensure that it does.  

Thank you all again for your attendance.  I’m truly very grateful.

ALLSOP CJ:   The Court will now adjourn.

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