By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
CBD was delighted to hear of Jayne Jagot’s appointment to the High Court on Thursday morning. It’s been a long time coming, with the 14-year federal court veteran considered a contender to fill the last few vacancies.
It means our High Court, a male-only institution until 1987, is now a majority female one. But beyond that bit of history, it might be about all we get to know about the judge, described at her 2008 swearing-in by her soon-to-be Federal Court colleague Anna Katzmann as “exceedingly private”.
Justice Jayne Jagot will be sworn in on October 17 as the 56th justice of the High CourtCredit: Peter Rae
“Your Honour guards your privacy so tightly that even your closest friends don’t know who you are,” Katzmann said.
“This got me thinking that your Honour was part of an elaborate witness protection program.”
More bizarrely, Katzmann then joked that Jagot had an alter ego as “Lorelei”, author of The Mistress Manual: The Good Girl’s Guide to Female Dominance because her written submissions were, like the manual, well-thought out and easy to follow.
Jagot, who is married to former judge and child sex abuse royal commission chair Peter McClellan in yet another of those legal fraternity power couples, is also described by Katzmann as having “never been seen in a frock”.
It matters little for a life spent in robes.
Hey Porter
Elsewhere in the legal world, Christian Porter is a hard man to find. After setting up a company – Henley Stirling Lawyers – of which he’s sole director earlier this year, and quitting politics at the last election, Porter’s managed to land a smattering of legal work in Western Australia.
Most recently, CBD’s spies spotted him rushing into the Perth Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, to do legal battle with a senior police constable. It’s quite the step down from the ministerial wing.
Most prominently, he joined underworld figure Mick Gatto’s legal team for a High Court defamation battle with the ABC, alongside Guy Reynolds, SC, and former George Brandis legal adviser Daniel Ward. He also appeared as defence counsel in a Perth gun heist trial.
But the former attorney-general, whose meteoric rise was haunted by the “future prime minister” tag, and whose political career unravelled after a historic sexual assault allegation (which he firmly denies) surfaced, is mainly keeping a very low profile.
Those hoping to avail themselves of Porter’s brilliant legal mind might have trouble.
His name doesn’t appear on the WA Bar Association’s list of barristers, or with any of Perth’s chambers. No address or phone number is easily available for Henley Stirling, unless you go through the rigmarole of a paid ASIC search, which turns up office space in a building shared with a cafe, beauty salon and massage parlour.
The point is, if you want Porter, you’d better know the right people to call. Looks like Gatto did.
If you could turn back time
On Thursday, The Australian’s front page had a very spicy story about the sordid world of Sydney’s organised crime.
That story has now disappeared, scrubbed from history after the paper realised it had made a huge mistake and published details in breach of a non-publication order. So desperate was The Oz to airbrush the error that the online version of the newspaper was redone and appears on its website with a completely new front page.
When contacted by CBD a spokesperson for News Corp said: “The Australian acted responsibly in taking down the article from its website once it was put on notice of the non-publication order today. The Australian had no knowledge or notice of the non-publication order until today, after the article had been published. ”
We hear the whole thing occurred because of an unfortunate administrative error. Very unfortunate indeed, given breaching such an order can put a publication at risk of criminal proceedings for contempt of court. In a different context, that’s something Australian news outlets, including this very masthead, know all too well, after fines were doled out over reporting on Cardinal George Pell’s now-quashed criminal conviction that breached a Victorian suppression order.
The moral of the story here? Always read the fine print.
Uni ruckus
All has not been well at the University of New England in Armidale, ever since former vice chancellor Brigid Heywood quit after being charged with assaulting a 16-year-old schoolgirl at an International Women’s Day event.
And there’s been pressure, as this masthead reported, for UNE’s chancellor James Harris to follow her out the door. Staff, and union members were disgruntled at his perceived support for Heywood, as well as his apparent lack of academic credentials – Harris is a grazier and local businessman whose great-grandfather donated the land on which the university was built.
More recently, a petition put together by academic staff has called on the university to call a convocation – basically a big meeting of all graduates and staff, with an aim to make the university’s council and executive more accountable.
It’s not without precedent. Such a meeting last went ahead in the 2000s, amid a huge staff blow-up over tensions between chancellor vice chancellor Alan Pettigrew and chancellor John Cassidy, who was later found by the ICAC to have engaged in corrupt conduct over the sale of UNE’s pub to one of his mates.
They do drama well up there.
Apology
On a more serious note, on September 5 our column referred to wealthy philanthropist Chau Chak Wing as being “Beijing aligned”. We did not intend to suggest that Dr Chau was working with or beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. We apologise to Dr Chau for any hurt and embarrassment.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.