Swearing in Ceremony of the Honourable George Alfred Palmer QC as a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales
THE SUPREME COURT
OF NEW SOUTH WALES
BANCO COURT
SPIGELMAN CJ
AND THE JUDGES OF
THE SUPREME COURT Monday 23 April 2001 SWEARING IN CEREMONY OF
THE HONOURABLE GEORGE ALFRED PALMER QC
AS A JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH
WALES
1. PALMER J: Chief Justice, I have the honour to announce that I have been appointed a Judge of this Court. I present to you my Commission.
2. SPIGELMAN CJ: Thank you, Justice Palmer. Please be seated whilst the Commission is read. Principal Registrar, would you please read the Commission.
(Commission read)
3. Justice Palmer, I ask you now to rise and take the oaths. First the oath of allegiance and then the judicial oath.
(Oaths of Office taken).
4. Principal Registrar, I hand to you the oaths to be placed amongst the Court's archives. Sheriff, I hand to you the Bible so that you may have the customary inscription placed in it in order that it may then be presented to Justice Palmer as a memento of this occasion.
5. Justice Palmer, on behalf of all of the Judges of the Court, and on my own behalf, I welcome you as a Judge of this Court. Your Honour has, for many years, been a Senior Counsel and participated in a full range of activities over which you will now preside as the Judge and I am looking forward to many years of service with you on this Bench.
6. Ms RUTH McCOLL PRESIDENT NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION: May it please the Court. It is my privilege to speak today on behalf of the New South Wales Bar to welcome and congratulate your Honour on your appointment to the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
7. Your Honour was admitted to the Bar on 8 November 1974. You read with Dick Conti, now of course Justice Conti of the Federal Court. You were appointed Queen's Counsel on 12 November 1986.
8. Your background equipped you well for your transition to the Bar. Whilst studying law at the University of Sydney, you did your articles at Freehill Hollingdale & Page working extensively in commercial law. From 1970 until 1974 you were employed as a solicitor at Messrs Strasser Geraghty & Partners where you specialised in mining and oil exploration and development work and public company securities. An early indication of your precocity is that you were a partner in that firm by the time you were in your mid 20s.
9. After you were admitted to the Bar, you specialised in company and commercial law and trade practices law. You rose rapidly to become the leader of the junior Bar in company law.
10. Apart from your manifest legal skills, one of the reasons you undoubtedly acquired a large practice lay in your approach to your clients and your cases. While passion is not always a description encouraged in relation to a barrister's work, particularly not in the company list, in your Honour's case it is fair to say you have always been passionate about your cases. You have always pursued your client's interests with great zeal, at the same time managing to remain objective. You have, of course, always been exceptionally well organised and prepared for each case. You are a lateral thinker, but at the same time a person said to understand human frailties. You are said to have great patience.
11. You have obviously taken early lessons in "Total Quality Management" for your client care skills are described as exemplary. There was always a sense of calm in your chambers, even during times of extreme stress, such as when a major corporate client wanted an advice within an hour!
12. You have been exceptionally well prepared for each case, bringing into that preparation those qualities essential for judicial life, being decisiveness, tenacity, extreme logic and the great ability of being able to sort out the wood from the chaff.
13. In Court you have been described as "an arresting speaker" who commands attention. Just how you achieved this is a matter of some debate. Your courtroom style has been described as occasionally "a touch theatrical” but just to demonstrate how subjective such observations can be, others describe you as being "intense, but not flamboyant".
14. You have served the community well through your work in public inquiries. You were Junior Counsel to Roger Gyles, now Justice Gyles of the Federal Court assisting the Woodward Royal Commission into drug trafficking.
15. In April 1986, the National Companies and Securities Commission appointed you to carry out a special investigation under Part VII of the Companies (New South Wales) Code into the collapse of the Balanced Property Trusts. That company had collapsed in 1984 leaving investors about $45 million out of pocket. By the end of 1986, you had produced a four-volume report in which you concluded that the group was "an imposing financial edifice... constructed on foundations of deceit and incompetence".
16. A brief recitation of some of the other cases in which you have been involved indicates your involvement in some of the major corporate controversies and collapses of the last two decades. You appeared in the Tryart litigation, parts of Spedley, the Estate Mortgage case, Talbot v NRMA Holdings, to mention a few.
17. In the Estate Mortgage case, you brought to the fore your ability to organise huge quantities of material logically by reducing six and a half million pages of documents into just eleven essential volumes.
18. Your Honour is about to move into a realm where you will have total control of the proceedings. This is not a unique experience for you, for you are a conductor in another world. You have been composing music in your spare time for some twenty-seven or so years. You describe yourself as being principally interested in being a composer who would also like to conduct your own work. You made your conducting debut at the Sydney Opera House in 1998 conducting the Sydney Opera House Orchestra in the curtain-raising programme for the Ray Charles tour. You were conducting your own arrangements of the work of singer/songwriter Scott Kilminster which is the stage name of Walker's brother.
19. You have had two tryouts to be a Supreme Court Judge. The first occurred by mistake when, soon after taking Silk, you somehow found yourself fully robed and marching in procession into St Mary's Cathedral for the Red Mass with all the Supreme Court Judges solemnly led by the then Chief Justice Sir Laurence Street.
20. The second was when you were an acting Judge of this Court in late 1991. It was apparent to all who appeared before you that you were obviously very good at that role. That being said, it is also the case that around that time you declared to anyone who would listen that you did not want to become a Judge. Which of your two tryouts dissuaded you, we may never know. Equally we may never know what has changed your mind. Whatever it was, we are confident that the people of this State and the administration of Justice will be well served by your appointment.
21. On behalf of the New South Wales Bar, I wish you a happy and successful tenure as a Judge of this Court.
22. May it please the Court.
23. MR NICHOLAS MEAGHER PRESIDENT LAW SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES: May it please the Court. On behalf of the solicitors of New South Wales, it is my great pleasure to welcome your Honour as a Judge of this Court.
24. Your Honour was born in Sydney and following your primary schooling at Hunters Hill, you were educated at St Ignatius College Riverview. I am told, your Honour, that in 1961, which was your Honour's last year at that school, I started as, according to your Honour's words, a freckled-faced young person starting out in my first year at that particular establishment.
25. Your Honour, as has been said, is an accomplished musician. You are remembered as the school organist, as a distinguished classics scholar, leaving behind your poetry compositions in both English and Latin. But at your special request today, your classics teacher Father Charles Fraser I am told is here, together with many of your former Greek students who studied with you at that particular time.
26. Your Honour attended Sydney University, where you were awarded Honours in Latin before completing your Law Degree. You will be joining other eminent classics scholars on the Bench of this Court, including the President of the Court of Appeal. I am told that at the instigation of Mr Page, you commenced your legal career as an articled clerk at Freehill Hollingdale & Page. It was there that you commenced your specialised interest in corporate law.
27. Your Honour was admitted as a solicitor in 1970 and joined the firm of Tribe & Strasser where you became a partner and were no doubt there able to share your love of chamber music with Mr Ken Tribe.
28. As we have heard this morning, your Honour was called to the Bar in 1974 and took Silk in 1986.
29. In 1991, your Honour, as has been said, had your initial exposure to life on the Bench when you were appointed an Acting Judge of the Commercial Division of this Court.
30. Your Honour is a highly-esteemed corporate lawyer with your specialised and, I am told, favourite area of legal studies being in the area of Law of Trusts.
31. Over the period from 1990 until 1997, as Senior Counsel in probably the largest and longest running commercial cases in Australian legal history, you led a team of four barristers and ten solicitors in what is known as the rather infamous Estate Mortgage piece of litigation.
32. Your contribution has been acknowledged as ending in one of the most highly successful results from the numerous collapses of that decade with the recovery of over $200 million.
33. During your frequent visits which you made to Melbourne for the duration of that case, you are remembered also for your absolute commitment in attending every possible Thursday night at Baker & McKenzie and staying for more than just your suggested one orange juice, before the late flight back to Sydney.
34. Your musical achievements have been of an exceptional order and your celebrated appearance in 1998, as has been said, as the conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the Ray Charles concert was rewarded by the packed audience with what is claimed to have been greater applause than that given for Mr Ray Charles.
35. Your passion for music and talent as an organist and pianist has been extended to the more adventurous field of electronic compositions. I understand that the challenge of mastering the cello remains for the future.
36. Your adventures in music are matched by your physical pursuits as a keen cyclist and I am told your Honour acquired the gift of a magnificent state-of-the-art mountain bike for your last birthday. This equipment, however, will be left behind when you embark next year on your 750 kilometre trek across the Pyranees from Le Puy to Santiago Del Compostela.
37. Your Honour is a dedicated family man, not only committed to your own family, but also the affairs of the Holy Family Parish at Lindfield. Your wife, Penny, two daughters and son, your parents and sister, Maureen, are here today.
38. On behalf of the solicitors of New South Wales, I take great pleasure in congratulating you on your appointment and to many satisfying years on the Bench.
39. If it please the Court.
40. PALMER J: Thank you, Chief Justice, Ms McColl and Mr Meagher. Truly is it said that the welcome address to a new Judge is the only occasion on which counsel is licensed to mislead the Court. Several times this morning, quite frankly, I wondered whether I had turned up to the right swearing-in.
41. Ms McColl and Mr Meagher, thank you for the warmth and the kindness of your welcome.
42. A major turning point in one's life, such as this is, provokes one to reflect both on the past and on the future. As to the future, I can only say that I am looking forward to the challenge with enthusiasm and that I am determined to do my best. As to the past, I am conscious that I have had many advantages in my life and that I am the product of the guiding influence of many people. It is impossible on this occasion to thank all those to whom I owe a debt of gratitude, but it is important for me to acknowledge publicly, at least, some of them.
43. As you have heard, my classics master at St Ignatius College was Fr Charles Fraser. Unfortunately, illness prevents him from being here today. A man of immense learning and accomplishment, he wears his scholarship lightly and generations of his pupils have been influenced by his generosity, humanity, forthrightness and a certain sardonic, if not deflating, wit. To give you some idea of the duration of that influence, not only did he teach me and my contemporaries at the Bar, he also taught Tom Hughes QC. I thank Fr Fraser for all that he has done for me.
44. In 1967 I commenced articles of clerkship with Freehill Hollingdale & Page. Mr Thomas Owen Jones, then and still an eminent partner of that firm, was entrusted with the task of turning a woolly-headed, gawky and diffident youth into a clear-thinking, polished and confident solicitor. Tom Jones was unfailingly patient and helpful but, lamentably, he failed. As you can see, I did not grow up to be a clear-thinking, polished and confident solicitor. Nevertheless, I thank him very much for his efforts.
45. I came to the Bar in 1974. I was fortunate to be led by some of the great advocates of the day. Accordingly, I immediately set myself to imitate slavishly their courtroom styles: Michael McHugh QC for swagger, panache and an encyclopaedic knowledge of any case ever decided anywhere in the common law world; Kenneth Handley QC for dazzling intellectual tours de force which had Courts of Appeal eating out of his hand; Peter Hely QC for the ability to enunciate the critical issue with such deadly economy that the Court hung greedily upon every syllable. Needless to say, my attempts at imitation failed to produce the same effects as the originals.
46. I did not attempt to imitate Murray Gleeson QC because I knew that I could never approach his almost frivolous jocularity in court; and I did not attempt to imitate Tom Hughes QC for the obvious reason that no-one would dare.
47. To each of them, and to all of my friends at the Bar, I express my thanks for their forbearance, their instruction and their camaraderie.
48. Two weeks after I was admitted to the Bar I was briefed to appear in a fully contested trial in the Supreme Court. The trial Judge was the late Mr Justice Needham. Trembling with nervous apprehension, I went to introduce myself to him in his chambers just before the trial commenced, as was the custom in those days. I said, “I hope you will make some allowances for me. This is my first trial." Mr Justice Needham replied with a smile, “I hope you will make some allowances for me too. This is my first trial."
49. That was typical of the charm and the courtesy of one of the greatest Judges to grace this or any other Bench in Australia. Denys Needham was a consummate Equity lawyer whose judgments command universal respect to this day. But just as importantly, he inspired in all who came into his Court, both lawyers and litigants, a secure confidence that justice had been done: every argument had been listened to with a fair and open mind, an erudite intelligence had been brought to bear on all the issues and all who had participated had been treated with courtesy and respect.
50. There have been other Judges on the Equity Bench who, for the same reasons, have likewise been held in the highest esteem and affection of the profession. I mention without further elaboration the late Sir Nigel Bowen, the Hon John Kearney, the Hon Malcolm McLelland, the Hon Brian Cohen. Those of us who have known Judges such as these know how much we are all indebted to them. They are the exemplars who we strive to follow.
51. I come now to my family. I am very happy that my mother and my father and my sister, Maureen, are here today. I have the best parents in the world and the best sister in the world. It is impossible for me to express in words on this occasion the extent of my gratitude to them and how much I admire, respect and love them.
52. Friendship has been a vital sustaining force in my life. I am proud and happy that my closest friends Scott Walker and Chris Hartcher can be here. Scott has been my best mate for almost half of my life and we have shared many adventures. Together Chris and I have been through school, university and all that followed. To Scott and Chris, my inadequate thanks for your love and friendship.
53. What can I say about my children, Matthew, Nerida and Claire, which will not justly condemn me as a boastful father? I am so proud of each of them, not only for what each has achieved but much more because each has grown into a wonderful, loving and generous human being. No parent could hope for better than that.
54. My wife, Penny, has strictly forbidden any disclosure of connubial confidences. She has sought and obtained a quia timet injunction restraining any attempt of judicial humour on the topic of our marriage. The injunction was granted by Justice Einstein over a bottle of wine last week, after a strenuously contested hearing. Therefore, all I will say of my wife of 30 years is this: without her, there would be nothing.
55. Over the last few days many of my colleagues at the Bar have been kind enough to offer suggestions as to how I should conduct myself on the Bench. Some of those suggestions have been - shall we say - interesting, but somewhat impractical. But the common theme of all the advice seems to have been this: “When you get into court, for goodness sake, just stop talking and let the rest of us get on with it."
56. That excellent advice I now propose to take. Thank you all very much for coming.
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