Tom Hughes, ‘lion of the Sydney bar’ dies at the age of 101
Legendary Sydney barrister, celebrated World War II pilot, former federal attorney-general and avid farmer Tom Hughes AO KC has died just two days after he marked his 101st birthday.
Legendary Sydney barrister, celebrated World War II pilot, former federal attorney-general and avid farmer Tom Hughes AO KC has died just two days after he marked his 101st birthday.
Hughes was a commanding presence in Australian courtrooms for more than half a century, still practising as a barrister well into his 80s with a trademark mix of persuasion, intimidation and theatre.
The “lion of the Sydney bar” was the father-in-law of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and the older brother of the late Robert Hughes, art critic and author of The Fatal Shore.
Hughes’ daughter, former Sydney lord mayor Lucy Turnbull, bade farewell to “wonderful father” in a message on social media.
“What an incredibly long and good life. We love you and will always miss you.”
Nicknamed “Frosty” for his often withering demeanour, Hughes appeared for clients as varied as former Labor attorney-general Lionel Murphy, on criminal charges; West Indian cricket captain Clive Lloyd, in a defamation case; Jane Makim (sister to the Duchess of York) when she was falsely accused of adultery; and for stockbroker Rene Rivkin in a defamation case against Fairfax newspapers.
His combination of belligerence and wit endeared him to court reporters. In a defamation case representing football player Andrew Ettingshausen – who sued when a newspaper published a photo of him in the shower – Hughes asked the New Zealand-born editor if the photo showed a penis.
Witness: “I guess it could be a shadow …”
Hughes: (mimicking her New Zealand vowels) “Is it a duck?”
Witness: “I don’t think it would be a duck.”
Thomas Eyre Forrest Hughes was born in Sydney in November 1923 into an already distinguished Irish-Catholic family. His father Geoffrey was a World War I flying hero said to have engaged in a lengthy dogfight with Baron Manfred von Richthofen (which both survived).
Hughes was educated at St Ignatius (Riverview) and the University of Sydney, where his law degree was interrupted by World War II. He joined the RAAF as a pilot, commanding Sunderland flying boats in D Day Operations escorting Allied convoys and sinking U-boats. He later modestly described it as “a relatively lucky and safe war”.
Admitted to the Bar in 1949, he took silk in 1962 and decided to run for parliament in the Liberal Party. The campaign manager for his first run at politics in 1963, in the marginal Labor seat of Parkes, was 24-year-old John Winston Howard.
Hughes won the seat and Robert Menzies won the election.
Hughes and Howard remained close. On Thursday, Howard paid tribute to his close friend of more than 60 years, recalling that campaign.
“Quickly adapting from the formality of the courtroom to speaking from the back of a truck near Campsie Railway Station, he fought a vigorous campaign and claimed this highly marginal seat for the Menzies government,” Howard said.
Hughes’ death “takes from the Australian public scene a man who accomplished so much in both law and politics.”
Hughes was appointed attorney-general in 1969 by prime minister John Gorton, a man he “admired and loved”, appearing in many leading constitutional cases in the High Court. He personally argued the government’s case in the historic Concrete Pipes case, which largely shaped interpretation of the corporations’ power in the Constitution.
A hard-line anti-communist and supporter of Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, Hughes famously wielded a cricket bat in 1970 as anti-conscription demonstrators invaded his Bellevue Hill home.
When the protesters hammered on the door of the house and tried to force their way in, the attorney-general fought off the trespassers and then helped police remove them. One of the protesters, Ian Macdonald – who went on to become a NSW minister jailed for corruption – brought assault charges against Hughes but they were dismissed.
Asked whether he had “gone to work on the demonstrators” with his cricket bat, Hughes replied: “I had one, yes.”
He received hundreds of letters of support, including one from former opening batsman Jack Fingleton, who noted: ‘Footwork magnificent – cannot be faulted. Grip with bat just a little suspect.”
Remarkably, the following year Hughes was instrumental in the passage of the Public Order Bill that gave protesters more rights and lower penalties. “Calls for law and order must not be allowed to deteriorate into attacks upon the right to dissent,” Hughes declared.
He was sacked as attorney-general by Billy McMahon who took over from Gorton as prime minister in 1971.
Hughes liked Gough Whitlam and loathed Malcolm Fraser, who he blamed for Gorton’s downfall.
At Gorton’s memorial service in 2002 he ripped into Fraser – sitting in the front row of the – church – declaring that “history’s judgment will be kinder (to Gorton) than it will be upon those who conspired to bring him down”.
On Thursday, John Howard noted that he, too, “thought it was the wrong decision” for McMahon to drop Hughes as attorney-general.
Following his return to the NSW Bar, Hughes built a reputation as one of the best – and most expensive, at $7000 a day – trial lawyers in the country.
An early riser, he was renowned for regularly catching the 5.30am bus to his chambers, ready to start a 15-hour day battling for his varied clientele.
Hughes had passions for farming his pride and joy Bannister Station near Goulburn, and for horse racing. His politics mellowed over the years, eventually supporting the Australian Republican Movement – led by his son-in-law Malcolm Turnbull.
Hughes urged Turnbull to stay in politics after losing the Liberal leadership to Tony Abbott in 2009, in a letter to his brother Robert, revealed in a biography by historian Ian Hancock, called Tom Hughes QC: A Cab on the Rank.
Hughes wrote that making Abbott leader was akin to putting “the principal lunatic in charge of the asylum”, though he later apologised to him for the remark.
Hughes could be equally caustic in his comments about the judiciary. Hancock quotes him describing one NSW Court of Appeal judge as “an intellectually inferior breed of judicial monkey” and another judge as “ill-tempered … discourteous and slow”.
Hughes retired from practice in 2010 at the age of 87.
On Thursday, NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell, who appeared as a junior with Hughes in one of his last appearances before the High Court, paid tribute to “an icon of the Australian legal profession, so loved and admired by generations of lawyers for his forensic brilliance and legal acumen”.
Hughes is survived by his wife, Christine and his children, Lucy, Tom and Michael and their families.
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