By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Whistleblower and integrity cause célèbre David McBride was jailed for five years and eight months in 2024. Meanwhile, the former military lawyer’s other, more personal legal matter appears at an end, after he reached a settlement with his barrister sister Louise McBride in a dispute over their late mother’s estate. Finally.
The McBride family saga is its own kind of North Shore gothic melodrama. Family patriarch William McBride was the hero obstetrician who alerted the world to the dangers of the drug Thalidomide.
David McBride, pictured outside the ACT Supreme Court before his sentencing on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
But he was later struck off as a doctor for fudging research in an attempt to discredit a different medication, following a Gold Walkley award-winning investigation by the ABC’s Norman Swan.
The upper crust family’s stunning fall from grace meant that when McBride’s mother Patricia died in 2021, a Neutral Bay apartment was about all that remained of her estate. That was left to Louise, and in 2022, David, who got just $10,000, sued his sister for a greater share, to help fund his legal bills.
Now, the siblings have finally reached a settlement, with one final legal issue resolved by Justice Michael Meek in the NSW Supreme Court this month, a dispute that hinged on interpretation of the delightfully-termed Felons Act.
Specifically, the question of whether McBride, who was a free man when the familial dispute began, could continue the proceedings while incarcerated without obtaining leave from the court. Neither the act, or past case law, provided much guidance on McBride’s peculiar matter, of someone who had begun legal proceedings before being convicted and jailed.
Without boring you with the arid legal jargon, Meek held that if the act did require the court to grant McBride leave, it was granted retroactively to allow the whistleblower to bring, maintain and settle the proceedings, despite being behind bars. He also made orders that McBride receive a lump sum of $75,000 from his mother’s estate.
He also noted the proceedings had a “long and somewhat torturous history” with “significant legal costs [and] … a heavy emotional toll on the parties”.
Meanwhile, this isn’t Louise McBride’s first rodeo as far as intriguing court cases. In 2014, she sued auction house Christie’s for selling her a fake Albert Tucker painting. And in a celebrated decision, she won.
Clutching at straws
To the NSW upper house, where our elected representatives always focus on the most pressing issues facing our great state.
On Wednesday, Libertarian MP John Ruddick used the soapbox that is question time to rail against the scourge of paper straws, urging the government to follow US President Donald Trump’s executive order reversing a ban on plastic straws.
“Will the government have the courage to face the reality bluntly spoken by Trump and support the Libertarian Party to reverse the plastic straw ban and let those decisions be made by market forces of shopkeepers and their customers and not under threat of violence from the state?” he thundered.
“The short answer is no,” Environment Minister Penny Sharpe replied.
“The longer answer is that perhaps he is being a bit of a straw man for the American president in that regard. Perhaps the Honourable John Ruddick’s view is that we need to make pollution great again.”
She continued that Trump “might be grasping at straws” if he thought this was one of the most important issues for the American people.
Ruddick, who has only just recovered from his US election night hangover, was not to be deterred.
“When does the minister expect that the science and manufacturing will catch up with reality and we will have paper straws that can have fluid going through them without rotting?” he wondered.
Sharpe conceded that “yes, some paper straws are not good”, but quickly decided to put an end to the nonsense.
“That does not mean we need to follow Donald Trump with his big black pen signing away the rights of people to use straws other than plastic. It is beyond ridiculous.”
Which is a fair summary of question time in the Legislative Council.
Out of office
No date for the looming federal election as yet, but one MP already has their out of office on.
That would be CBD regular Michelle Ananda-Rajah, outgoing member for the abolished federal seat of Higgins and now wannabe Labor senator.
Outgoing Labor MP and Senate hopeful Michelle Ananda-Rajah.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Earlier in February, constituents who emailed her office received a standard automatic response thanking correspondents for getting in touch and explaining the office received many emails and phone calls each day.
“We will aim to respond to your query as soon as we can,” the reply said.
But this week constituents who emailed the Higgins MP received a very different automated response.
“Thank you for your email. The seat of Higgins has been abolished. I will be running for the Senate at the upcoming federal election,” automated email states, referring voters to different local MPs whose own electorates will absorb parts of Higgins in the electoral carve up.
A spokesman for the MP declined to comment. Maybe they are just being helpful by listing constituents’ new electorates. But Ananda-Rajah is still the official elected representative – at least for now.
The AEC told us: “Higgins has been abolished, but the new boundaries don’t apply until the election. So, the member for Higgins continues to represent Higgins (as the boundaries were at the 2022 federal election) until the writ is issued for the 2025 federal election.”
So the Labor MP is still officially the elected representative until 6pm on the day the election is called.
But it’s just that she is not really that available. The automatic reply ends thus:
“Only personal issues of an urgent nature will be dealt with by this office. Yours sincerely, Michelle.”
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