Renowned barrister Tom Hughes was admired and feared in equal measure

TOM HUGHES: 1923 – 2024

It was always assumed that Tom Hughes would follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and become a solicitor. But when he was serving with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in London during World War II, his curiosity took him to the law courts, where he sat in the public gallery, transfixed by the proceedings. Inspired by the bewigged, black-gowned men whom he saw prosecuting and defending cases with such wit, confidence and verve, he decided to break away from tradition and become a barrister instead.

Tom Hughes KC pictured in his chambers in 1994.Credit: Greg Newington

It was the right decision. The curious young man grew up to become Tom Hughes AO KC, the éminence gris of the Australian political and legal system whose illustrious career lasted for over 50 years.

As one of Australia’s most renowned – and expensive – barristers, he was admired and feared in equal measure. A 2002 Herald profile of him described him as resembling: “a Navajo elder, red-brown in complexion, jaw carved, hinged, rather, above a starched blue-white shirt and below the ancient wig, wound like so many hair rollers, three to each side, four at the back.”

Although he always said law was his first love, he had a distinguished political career. Hughes served as Australia’s 19th attorney-general in the Gorton government from 1969 to 1971 and as a Liberal member of the House of Representatives from 1963 to 1971, representing the NSW seats of Parkes and Berowra.

As a KC specialising in defamation law, he represented some of Australia’s most high-profile plaintiffs in numerous cases over half a century – and usually, but not always, won.

Tom Hughes at home with daughter Lucy in 1963, the morning after winning the seat of Parkes in the federal election. Credit: George Lipman

These cases included that of Elizabeth Evatt, chief judge of the Family Court, who sued when a Sun-Herald article about the court accused her of overseeing the destruction of family lives with: “the same cold-blooded efficiency that Ilsa Kuhn and her like used in disposing of Jews in Auschwitz and Belsen”.

He represented disgraced former NSW chief stipendiary magistrate Murray Farquhar in his criminal trial, and Jane Makim – sister to the Duchess of York – who was found to be defamed when falsely accused of adultery.

Hughes appeared several times for his law school contemporary Lionel Murphy – former attorney-general in the Whitlam government and High Court judge – before Senate committees investigating the “my little mate” affair, in the High Court on a constitutional issue, and before the Court of Appeal, where he managed to get a new trial for Murphy after he was found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Tom Hughes (left) led the Channel Seven legal team in the 2008 Mercedes Corby defamation case in the Supreme Court.Credit: Fairfax

His time as federal attorney-general was something of a rollercoaster, marked by success and controversy. His involvement in the 1971 High Court decision on the so-called Concrete Pipes case was described by Gough Whitlam, opposition leader at the time, as “historic”, paving the way for a host of new federal laws on consumer protection and the regulation of corporation and financial affairs.

Scenes taken by a Channel Ten cameraman during the demonstration at then-federal attorney-general Tom Hughes’ home at Bellevue Hill in 1970.Credit: Fairfax Media

During the Vietnam War, a time of heightened political sensitivities, with moratorium marches across the country, Hughes was responsible for prosecuting draft dodgers who had breached the National Service Act. One Sunday afternoon in 1970, matters took a dramatic turn when protesters appeared at his family home in Bellevue Hill, and Hughes chased them away with his son Tom’s cricket bat. (He was charged with unlawful assault in relation to his use of the bat but found not guilty by reason of provocation.) He later said he had no regrets about his behaviour because he had tried to exercise a judgement based on “caution, moderation and restraint”.

Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes was born on November 26, 1923, in Rose Bay. His family were scions of the establishment: upper-middle-class Irish Catholics who were – unusually for the time – loyal to the British Empire.

His grandfather, Sir Thomas Hughes, was a solicitor who rose to the position of lord mayor of Sydney, just as Sir Thomas’s great-grand-daughter Lucy Turnbull would, a century later.

Tom Hughes photographed in 2005, when it was announced he was to receive the Legion of Honour from France for his services as a pilot during World War II.

His father – whom Tom always said was the man he most admired and respected – was Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, a solicitor and decorated World War I flying ace who duelled over France with Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. His mother was Margaret Eyre (née Sealy Vidal), a vicar’s daughter from Devon, England. As well as Tom, the couple had one daughter, Constance, and two more sons, Geoffrey and Robert. Robert Hughes would become the renowned art critic and author of A Fatal Shore.

Although the Hughes children grew up against the shadow of the Depression, their parents worked hard to give them a secure, happy upbringing. Tom attended St Ignatius College (Riverview) before heading for the Law School at the University of Sydney but put his degree on hiatus when he volunteered for service in the RAAF in 1940.

He saw action from 1943 to 1945 in Europe as a flying boat pilot, flying around the Bay of Biscay, escorting Allied convoys and hunting U-boats and enemy ships. In 2005, he was awarded the Legion of Honour – France’s highest military honour – for this work. Ever modest, he said his service was “my rather minimal contribution to the war”.

After three years with the RAAF, he returned to Sydney, completed his degree and became associate to the judge Sir William Owens. He took silk in 1962, the same year as Gough Whitlam. He was then persuaded to stand as a Liberal candidate in the marginal Labor seat of Parkes in Sydney’s inner west. His campaign manager was a young John Howard, who remained a close friend throughout his life.

A painting of Tom Hughes at The National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House in Canberra.Credit: 2004

It was a virulent anti-socialist and pro-Cold War campaign, aspects of which Hughes later admitted were “scurrilous”, but he won, and the Menzies government was returned. He was re-elected in Parkes in 1966, then won in Berowra in 1969. He served as John Gorton’s attorney-general from November 1969 to March 1971 before he was unceremoniously sacked by William McMahon. (McMahon replaced Gorton after he resigned when a confidence motion in him was tied.) Disgusted, Hughes retired from politics, declaring that McMahon was “a shocking little person”.

Hughes “loved and admired” John Gorton, and held Malcolm Fraser responsible for his demise because he saw Fraser’s resignation as defence minister in 1971 as precipitating his friend’s downfall. Hughes denounced Fraser from the pulpit at Gorton’s memorial service in 2002 as Fraser sat in the congregation. “One of the great sadnesses of my life arises from my belief that Malcolm made a grave misjudgement in that act of condemnation,” he said.

After the rancour of federal politics, it was time to return to the bar, where he served as president of the NSW Bar Association from 1973 to 1975. The rugged, courteous, handsome KC was in considerable demand and as his star rose, so did his fees, which eventually hit £6000 ($11,000) a day.

Hughes kept working until his late 80s, telling the Herald in 2002: “If there’s work for me to do, I’ll do it. It’s a source of intellectual stimulation, and I’ve never been a person who’s capable of relaxing for long.”

Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull with his grandson Jack, wife Lucy and his daughter Daisy, son-in-law James Brown, and parents-in-law Tom and Christine Hughes at Government House, 2015.Credit: Fairfax

Over the years, his politics gradually mellowed, and he became more moderate and socially liberal, insisting that the Liberal Party should be a broad church. He gradually moved towards republicanism and reclaimed his Catholic faith after disagreeing with the church’s policy on social issues such as birth control. In 1988, he was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) for services to the legal profession.

In 1951, Hughes married Joanna FitzGerald, niece of the poet Robert FitzGerald. They had three children: Lucinda (Lucy), Thomas (Tom) jnr, and Michael. Tom described his father as: “the ultimate patriarch, a don, on the phone to all members of the family constantly, reviewing where everyone is in their life”.

All of his children continued the family tradition of public service. As well as having a long record in business and philanthropy, Lucy was lord mayor of Sydney from 2003 to 2004 and was at the side of her husband Malcolm Turnbull throughout his prime ministership from 2015 to 2018. Tom is a respected criminal barrister and Michael, a businessman, holds office in the NSW Liberal Party.

After Hughes and Joanna divorced in 1972, he wooed several glamorous women, including fellow barrister Kate Weigall, publicist Deeta Colvin and actress Kate Fitzpatrick, to whom he proposed unsuccessfully on Parliament House writing paper in 1973. He eventually found happiness with Chrissie Abel Smith, and they married in 1981.

Tom Hughes KC in his chambers in 1994.Credit: Greg Newington

In 2016, Ian Hancock’s authorised biography Tom Hughes QC: A Cab on the Rank catapulted Hughes into the headlines again. The book, stuffed with revealing extracts from his letters and diaries, republished a letter that Hughes had written to his brother Robert about the 2009 Liberal leadership challenge that saw Tony Abbott usurp Hughes’ much-loved son-in-law, Malcolm Turnbull.

“This is a potentially catastrophic decision,” he wrote. “To elect Abbott in his place is the equivalent of putting the bull in charge of the china shop or the principal lunatic in charge of the asylum.”

Turnbull was, of course, prime minister at the time, and this caused him some embarrassment. The matter was resolved quietly when an abashed Hughes wrote to Abbott to apologise.

As well as his love for the law and his family, he derived most pleasure from Bannister Station, one of his properties near Goulburn, and somewhere he found a peaceful retreat from the hubbub of the bar.

Tom Hughes is survived by his wife Chrissie, his children Lucy, Tom and Michael and their families.