Pro-voice barristers are ‘financially motivated’: Stuart Wood AM KC

Barristers publicly supporting a Yes vote for the Indigenous voice are commercially motivated and will gain financially from doing so, according to eminent lawyer Stuart Wood AM KC.

Stuart Wood says ‘you’ve got people who their whole livelihood is taking government briefs now because government is so big and within the legal spend being so big’. Picture: Liam Kidston

Barristers publicly supporting a Yes vote for the Indigenous voice to parliament are commercially motivated and will gain financially from doing so, according to eminent lawyer ­Stuart Wood AM KC, who, among other Victorian barristers, is ­opposing a move for the state Bar association to support the referendum.

The Victorian Bar Association is being savaged by internal discord over the voice, with some members canvassing a “nuclear option” of bringing the issue to a head at a meeting on Thursday.

Some barristers are demanding the institution publicly back the referendum proposal while others want it to remain impartial so it doesn’t compromise its independence.

The infighting comes as the Victorian Bar Council gears up for the meeting on Thursday to ­debate the issue, after it received a petition signed by about 300 barristers urging the Council to follow the lead of the NSW Bar Council and publicly back a Yes vote at the referendum.

But Mr Wood told The Australian he believed lawyers throwing their support behind a Yes ­endorsement were doing so for ­financial purposes to stay in favour with government and corporate clients.

“You’ve got people who their whole livelihood is taking government briefs now because government is so big and within the legal spend being so big,” Mr Wood, who represented former rugby player Israel Folau in his landmark workplace discrimination case, said.

“The other thing too … is that it doesn’t hurt them to be seen to be woke with their corporate clients too. If you come out and parade as someone who’s in with the (voice) zeitgeist, then you’re not only ­advertising to the Victorian and federal governments that you’re the right person to brief, you’re ­advertising to most of the ­companies too.”

Mr Wood said the governments controlled about 40-50 per cent of the legal spend for barristers, which incentivises them to “be with the zeitgeist”. 

“It’s just a no-brainer for them. This is just a commercial play. It’s smart,” he said.

In a letter leaked from the Victorian Bar Council papers for Thursday’s meeting, barrister Paul Hayes KC wrote to Victorian Bar president Sam Hay claiming the pro-voice petition was not representative of the association’s large membership, and urging him to refrain from taking a public stance on a political debate.

“The purpose of this letter is not to recite arguments for either case or embark upon a detailed analysis of the possible constitutional and governmental consequences of the proposed referendum in its present form,” the letter, obtained by The Australian, read.

Paul Hayes.

“Rather, it is to simply and earnestly ask the Victorian Bar to exercise restraint on this issue and refrain from entering into what is becoming a heated and sadly divisive political debate and beyond our Bar’s conventional remit for public comment, which is limited to issues directly affecting the interests of our members to conduct their practices at the Bar, rule of law issues and the administration of justice in the state of ­Victoria and Australia.”

Mr Hayes told The Australian it was disappointing the Bar ­Council had become politicised, saying he believes the association shouldn’t waste the currency of its voice “speaking out on anything other than rule of law issues, and the administration of justice”.

“We shouldn’t be commenting on it, we shouldn’t be getting into the political debate because otherwise, when we do need to speak up about funding of legal aid or problems with the administration of justice or, more importantly, all matters of the rule of law, we become just another voice,” he said.

“This is where it gets pernicious. The public rely upon institutions, and the Victorian Bar should strive to be one of those trusted institutions so that when we do speak, we have the public interest at heart. And this is the problem: you dilute the currency of your voice when you start wading into a political debate.”

Last year’s Victorian Bar Council election was won predominantly by left-leaning members of the association, who now hold 12 of the 21 seats.

“(The Bar Council) has not yet considered its position. It will do so shortly,” the Bar Council president said. “It would be inappropriate for me to make any comment prior to that occurring.”

Meanwhile, a notice to convene a Special General Meeting is being widely circulated among Bar members, proposing all 2200 vote on whether the association should announce a public stance on the voice or keep quiet.

The Bar Council’s constitution requires 40 signatories to support the proposal before the Special General Meeting can go ahead, which, said one barrister, who requested to remain anonymous, should be easy enough.

“There’s been a lot of grizzling from the more traditional barristers, and from people in favour of the voice who just don’t believe that the Bar should be involved,” he said.

“We don’t want to go the way of the NSW Bar, so the nuclear option is to bring on this Special General Meeting.”

Mr Wood lambasted the NSW Bar Association for publicly endorsing the voice, and criticised NSW silk Bret Walker KC for, in his opinion, labelling the arguments of those who opposed the referendum “racist”.

“New South Wales is just a joke. The NSW Bar Association is just the most politically correct institution,” he said.

“You saw the tone set by Walker by calling people’s arguments racist, for not agreeing with (the voice). We’re not that bad in Victoria, but half of them would be as bad as Walker if they could get away with it.”

Another senior Victorian silk, who also took aim at the NSW Bar Association for publicly backing the voice last month, described any push for any state legal association to support the voice as “moral bullying”.

“The New South Wales Bar is much more desperate to be part of the zeitgeist than Melbourne … The mullahs (in NSW) have really taken over, it’s much more fundamentalist stuff there even than Victoria, which is kind of weird,” he said.

“I just don‘t understand how the New South Wales Bar Association got away with what they got away with. A Bar Council should only be speaking out in exceptional circumstances where the rule of law is in one way or other threatened and generally speaking out against the flow of public opinion.”