By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
A shout-out to media lawyer Peter Llewellyn Bartlett, who is celebrating 50 years as a partner in legal firm MinterEllison – a milestone unlikely to be surpassed.
Bartlett has worked on some of the biggest legal cases in Australian history, involving Kerry Packer, Abe Saffron, Mick Gatto, Tony Madafferi, Justice Lionel Murphy, Robert Trimbole, Christopher Dale Flannery, Dr Geoffrey Edelsten and Roger Rogerson. He also acted for the widow of Donald McKay in the special inquiry into his murder.
MinterEllison lawyer Peter Bartlett with a copy of The Age from 1980, when the paper pulled a story about the Anzus Papers for legal reasons and replaced it with an advertisement.Credit: Paul Rovere
He completed his articles in 1972, was admitted to practice in 1973 and was made a partner at the law firm that is now MinterEllison in 1974, where he has worked with some 19 editors of The Age.
Bartlett grew up in Warburton in the Yarra Ranges, where his mother opened a shop after his timber-cutter father suffered a stroke. He didn’t even understand what a lawyer did, but his aunt told him it would be a worthy profession.
His life turned a corner at Flinders Golf Club when his dad and brother chanced to meet a partner at law firm Gillott Moir & Winneke, who later offered him articles. The firm, now MinterEllison, has acted for The Age since the 1860s.
Bartlett in June last year.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
In 2018, decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith launched the defamation trial of the century when he sued this masthead for reporting he had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
It turned into a 110-day trial involving 125 subpoenas, 26 affidavits and hundreds of witnesses – and legal costs for this masthead that would have totalled $15 million if Nine, by then the owner of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, had lost.
When Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko delivered his verdict, a win for the paper on all counts, Bartlett, listening in while on holiday in Iceland, burst into uncontrollable tears.
“I have been very lucky to work with some of the best journalists that this country has produced and on some of the biggest stories, stories that the public has a right to see,” he told CBD.
The lawyer has five children, 12 grandchildren and a devoted wife of 45 years, and his family has been encouraging him to retire for 15 years. But Bartlett plans to continue his work and positions on bodies including the Melbourne Press Club, the advisory board at Melbourne University’s Centre for Advancing Journalism, and the International Bar Association.
To adapt a phrase he often deploys during pre-publication legal advice for this very column: fine with us.
WHERE TO NEXT?
Quo vadis Isaac Levido? (OK, that’s Latin for where are you going?)
The former Port Macquarie boy turned political strategist has had some massive wins in his portfolio: think Scott Morrison’s “I have always believed in miracles” May 2019 federal election win, and Boris Johnson’s December 2019 “Get Brexit Done” British general election – a slogan attributed to the strategist. It was even reported that Conservative Party staffers were so in the strategist’s thrall that on the election night when the scale of the victory became apparent, they chanted “Oooh, Isaac Levidooo” to the tune of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.
Campaign strategist Isaac Levido in London earlier this year. Credit: Bloomberg
But that was before Johnson’s successor Rishi Sunak led the Conservative Party through a disastrous campaign that ended in massive defeat last week. Levido was on the books working for the party, but his advice – such as don’t have an early election – wasn’t followed, it was reported.
So what does Levido – once a protege of veteran Liberal Party election whisperer Sir Lynton Crosby at his Crosby Textor Group – do next? Not return to Australia, it seems.
“I’ve been based in the UK for some time and will continue to be. I have a corporate business I’ll be returning to,” Levido, who has an OBE, told us.
In January he founded Sancrox Political Advisory, which just happens to share a name with an industrial suburb of Port Macquarie.
FIXING IT
It was months ago that Andy Gargett, the inaugural chief executive of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, which will negotiate a treaty later this year, flagged his departure from the organisation, destination unknown.
Gargett left his post at the end of June after the most recent Assembly chamber meeting held at the world heritage site Budj Bim, a dormant volcano near Macarthur in south-western Victoria that’s older than the pyramids. Gunditjmara man Damein Bell has stepped up to take over Gargett’s gig.
Gargett has joined Emma Webster as a director in the Melbourne office of Labor-leaning government relations firm Hawker Britton. He previously worked in the Department of Justice and helped to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Prevention of Family Violence.
Hawker Britton broke the “don’t become the story” rule when lobbyist John-Paul Blandthorn, brother of Allan government minister Lizzie Blandthorn, was sacked by the firm last month. He denies allegations of bullying and is seeking legal advice.
Good thing Gargett has a reputation as a “Mr Fix It”.
AND FINALLY
We note that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced Jillian Segal as Australia’s first antisemitism envoy. Given CBD brought you advance news of this appointment last week, we debated if we deserved a modest victory lap. But when our editors voiced concerns such a move would be insufferably smug, that clinched it for us.