As I stand here attempting
to follow the tradition established by our founding President,
Sir Harry Gibbs, in closing our conferences with some concluding
remarks, I am conscious of a number of factors.
The
first is that I have been greatly honoured by this Society in
being invited to succeed the late Sir Harry as your President.
The second is that Sir Harry left some enormous footprints on
this Society, its conferences and its publications. The third
is that I have no hope of filling Sir Harry's shoes, so I shall
not attempt to do so---I can only promise to do my best.
We
were privileged to have not one but two High Court judges address
our conference. Justice Dyson Heydon delivered the inaugural Sir
Harry Gibbs Memorial Oration on Friday night, and he was followed
next morning by Justice Michael Kirby (by video); the Honourable
Tom Hughes, the Attorney-General who had recommended Sir Harry's
original appointment to the High Court; Mr David Jackson, QC who
had served as associate to Mr Justice Gibbs, then of the Queensland
Supreme Court; and Mr Julian Leeser. Each spoke about different
aspects of Sir Harry's life and work as lawyer, barrister, friend,
judge and Chief Justice: together they gave us a wonderful word
picture of a courteous and gentle man, an exemplar in the law,
a judge of high principle, and a stout defender of the nation's
Constitution and its institutions.
Our
second conference theme---a Bill of Rights---was also one that
was dear to Sir Harry's heart. Professor James Allan drew on the
Canadian experience, and Mr Ben Davies on the experience in Victoria,
to remind us of the difficulties in drawing the line between competing
rights of individuals, of the dangers to parliamentary sovereignty
at the hands of unelected judges, and of the risk to federalism
from centrally-appointed judges. We also saw a whole new meaning
has been given to the words "independent chairman".
On
Saturday night Dr Janet Albrechtsen drew this section of our conference
to a close by reminding us of the pernicious strategy that has
been set in train to slowly give us State and Territory charters
of human rights that would induce us to accept the ultimate goal---an
entrenched Bill of Rights in the federal Constitution. It is my
earnest hope that this Society and its members will respond to
this latest threat to our system of parliamentary democracy and
to our individual rights as citizens.
The
rest of our conference programme was devoted to other causes that
were of special interest to Sir Harry---Professor David Flint
on the constitutional role of the Sovereign; Mr John Stone with
a post-script to the constitutional referendum; Mr Stuart Wood
with some spirited observations on the Work Choices case currently before
the High Court, and on the judges hearing it; Dr Gary Johns on
the emerging and very welcome changes in Aboriginal policy; and
Mr John Roskam with a reminder of what, if anything, remains of
the notion of federalism within the Liberal Party, and why.
I
have commented somewhat more briefly than Sir Harry would have
done on the papers presented to us because I want to use the rest
of my allotted time to say something about one of his responsibilities
as Chief Justice that has so far not been mentioned. I refer to
his role as Chairman of the Council for the Order of Australia---the
body that is charged with recommending the half-yearly honours
lists of awards in the Order to the Governor-General, who is also
Chancellor and Principal Companion of the Order.
The
Council consists of members nominated by the Australian government,
members nominated by the State and Territory governments, and
ex-officio members---the Vice-President
of the Federal Executive Council, the Chief of the Defence Force,
and the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet.
When
the Queen established the Order in 1975, the Chief Justice of
the High Court was also an ex-officio
member of the Council and served as its Chairman. Sir Garfield
Barwick was the first Chairman, and he was succeeded in turn by
Sir Harry Gibbs and Sir Anthony Mason. As Official Secretary to
the Governor-General I was also Secretary of the Order of Australia
and Secretary to the Council for the Order, and in that capacity
it was my privilege to work closely with those three Chief Justices
in their respective roles as Chairman of the Council.
I
have no wish to make comparisons. All three of them devoted much
time and energy to the task, and it was a demanding task which
each of them discharged diligently and conscientiously. The success
of the Order of Australia owes them much. Sadly, their successors
on the High Court have been unable or unwilling to accept this
additional burden, and I believe that, as a consequence, the honours
system is the poorer.
As
I have said, I make no comparisons, but as this conference has
been organised as a tribute to Sir Harry Gibbs, I wish to add
to what has already been said about him and to place on record
his work as Chairman of the Council for the Order of Australia.
He
always treated me and the members of my staff in the Australian
Honours Secretariat with great courtesy. Whether we sat alongside
him during meetings of the Council, or called on him in his chambers
at the High Court to settle final details of a list of recommendations
to go to the Governor-General and, in those days, to the Queen,
he listened patiently and gave us whatever time we needed.
He
obviously spent many hours reading the several hundreds of nominations
and in preparing for each meeting of the Council. At each meeting
he guided the Council gently and politely, steering a course through
the competing interests of the Commonwealth, State and Territory
representatives---indeed, it was an example of co-operative federalism
in action.
But
above all, he was determined to see that each nomination was considered
on its merits. If the discussion around the table suggested that
full credit was not being given to some aspect of the nominee's
achievements, he would draw the Council's attention to it. If
the discussion looked as if it was heading off at a tangent, he
would bring the members back gently but firmly to the issue at
hand. If the level of award being considered was out of kilter
with past awards for similar or like services, he would bring
this to the Council's notice. If the decision was to defer or
reject a nomination, he wanted to be sure that that was the right
decision.
In all of this Sir Harry's main concern was
to ensure that each case was considered justly and fairly and
properly. To him, each nomination was a pen picture of the achievements
of a fellow Australian and of their contributions to our society,
and he took great pains to ensure that every one of them received
a fair go.
As
always, we are indebted to John and Nancy Stone for yet another
interesting, timely and enjoyable conference, and on your behalf
I thank them most sincerely.
I
wish you all safe journeys home.