Farewell Ceremony for the Honourable Justice James Wood AO 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 Wednesday 31 August 2005 FAREWELL CEREMONY FOR
THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE JAMES WOOD AO
AS A JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES
1 SPIGELMAN CJ: We gather here today to mark the retirement of the Honourable James Wood AO, one of the most highly respected, and most widely respected, judges in the history of this Court. Over a period of 21 years as a judge of this Court, as a Royal Commissioner and as Chief Judge at Common Law, the contribution that your Honour has made to the administration of justice in this State represents a level of public service that few can hope to equal and none surpass.
2 Your contribution has not only been that of a judge, but that of a judicial leader. Your legal learning, intelligence, judgment, courage, humanity, keen sense of justice, fundamental decency and straight forward style have combined to enable you to show leadership by example, with the result that the role appears to be effortless. Your colleagues have instinctively accepted your leadership without question. There has never been an occasion since my own appointment as Chief Justice over seven years ago, when I was not able to rely completely on your Honour's advice, judgment and competence. I could not have wished for a better colleague.
3 There is in the law a certain snobbishness which accords higher status and significance to technical legal reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most important job done by judges is the making of findings of fact and, where a jury is the tribunal of fact, the provision of guidance to the jury. The primacy of fact finding in the course of the administration of justice is not acknowledged as widely as it ought be.
4 Your Honour's performance as a trial judge, or as a judge instructing a jury, was always impeccable. No doubt your Honour can remember occasions on which your have been overturned on appeal but none of your colleagues, to whom I have spoken in recent days, can do so.
5 Both as a trial judge, and as a judge sitting in the Court of Appeal, your Honour has made important contributions to the development of the civil law. Your work has covered the full range of diverse civil disputes that come before the Common Law Division. A number of your Honour's judgments are regarded as the leading cases on particular matters.
6 It is, however, in the area of criminal justice, both at trial and on appeal, that your Honour has made your most important contribution. You have done so across the full spectrum of the issues that arise in this fundamental area of the law: the elements of liability, the details of criminal procedure, the admissibility of evidence and the principles of sentencing. There is no area of the criminal law in which your Honour has not delivered judgments that, I have no doubt, will stand the test of time. Your judgments comprehensively analyse every issue that arose in each case and every one manifests a force and clarity of expression that ensures their utility for the long term.
7 This contribution began soon after your Honour's appointment when your Honour presided in the Ananda Marga Inquiry to determining whether the convictions in that high profile matter were safe. Your Honour's analysis has frequently been cited with approval in subsequent such inquiries. Subsequently your Honour delivered many judgments which serve as models for all those who have followed: directions with respect to relationship evidence in a sexual assault case; principles of relevance when sentencing Aboriginal offenders - principles which manifest your Honour's profound humanity; the construction and operation of the unfavourable witness provisions under the 1995 Evidence Act; the operation of new provisions concerning admissions under the same Act; determining that the mental health fitness provisions extend to persons who are developmentally or intellectually disabled; determining what to do in the case of jury misbehaviour, such as obtaining information about an accused over the internet or undertaking private views; guidance as to the role of drug addiction as a factor relevant to sentencing for offences such as armed robbery; determining whether a sentence of life imprisonment is appropriate after the "life means life" statutory amendments. Recently your Honour conducted the first trial of an alleged terrorist under the special legislation adopted for the trial of such offenders. Your Honour also participated in all of the sentencing guideline judgments which the Court developed over recent years. Your contribution to the analysis contained in those judgments was fundamental, whether or not your Honour wrote a separate judgment.
8 No-one in this room, indeed few people in this State, is unaware of the extraordinary public service your Honour performed in conducting the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service and the accompanying paedophile inquiry. Your Honour's intelligence, competence and courage were never on better display than during that period. At the outset your Honour had the crucial insight that you would not discover whether or not there existed systematic and entrenched corruption by reviewing files relating to past matters. You recruited police from the Australian Federal Police and from the forces of other States to conduct your own investigations. Turning one crooked policeman at an early stage enabled the covert work of the Commission to produce extraordinary results, including that celebrated and now iconic footage, recorded by a camera in the dashboard of a car, showing that person handing over a bribe to a colleague. From that moment onwards the Commission was seen to be effective and the impetus towards reform within the police force became unstoppable.
9 Your final report did not simply record the existence of widespread corruption, including process corruption such as verballing and the planting of evidence, but put forward a range of proposals for significant management change, including a new institutional structure to prevent, or at least minimise, the future occurrence of the conduct exposed. The parallel paedophile inquiry led to a range of recommendations, also adopted, with respect to the adequacy of the law and the conduct of court cases involving child complainants. For these reports alone, the people of NSW will stand in your debt for decades to come.
10 There is another contribution, perhaps not quite as public, but which is also of great significance. I refer to your Honour's role as a judicial administrator. The period of your service coincided with the transformation of the role of judges with respect to the conduct of proceedings. The judiciary now actively seeks to ensure the effective and efficient management of individual cases and of the case load of courts, a role which it did not perform at all when you became a judge over 20 years ago. Your Honour was a leader in this development.
11 There may have been in the past judges who acted on the principle that nothing must ever be done for the first time. That has long since ceased to be the case. It was never true of your Honour. There is no aspect of this Court's management of civil common law cases or criminal trials or criminal appeals that has not been initiated or expanded or reinforced by your own contribution and example. I can testify personally to the fact that until the day that you retired, you never lost your enthusiasm for new ideas and your preparedness to review past practice.
12 For all of these reasons, and others that time does not permit me to mention, it is with great regret that your colleagues gather here today to say farewell to a remarkable man.
13 MR I G HARRISON SC PRESIDENT NEW SOUTH WALES BAR ASSOCIATION: If the Court pleases. I was admitted to practise as a barrister on 11 March 1977. Shortly before that I went to see Captain Cook, the then Registrar of the Bar Association. I said, "I want to be a barrister." He said, "You'll have to go to university first." I said, "No, I've done that. I understand you can assist me in finding someone to read with." He pulled out a scrap of paper and wrote: "Jim Wood - 7 Wentworth" and gave it to me. Life at the bar was going to be a great adventure. I knew that because Registrar Bill Cook was the only person I ever met with a motorbike parked in his office.
14 I had never heard of Jim Wood. I went upstairs to the seventh floor and the receptionist directed me to Fred de Saxe. Fred was one of nature's gentlemen. He was also good at his job. He managed to keep everyone on the seventh of Wentworth smiling. Well, almost everyone.
15 I was taken into your Honour's room and introduced myself. I didn't get the impression that you had had any forewarning of my arrival but that didn't seem to matter. You welcomed me and after a short conversation I left. I had been in many barristers' chambers as an articled clerk and as a solicitor in the previous four years, but I had never seen anything quite like your room before. I am sure you had a brief in that room, whether you knew it or not, from almost every firm of solicitors in Sydney and beyond. Although unimportant to you, I remember you told me that a room on the seventh of Wentworth was like a licence to print money. I regret to inform you that this is no longer true. Recently they've been leaving in droves.
16 If your Honour was not the busiest junior at the New South Wales bar in 1977, you were at the very least one of them. You seemed constantly to be under pressure. I was hopeful that I would be able to relieve you of some it.
17 I was exquisitely privileged to learn at your elbow. And you taught me well. I remember appearing as your junior in the Central Court of Petty Sessions on behalf of Darcy Dugan, who was seeking to sue The Daily Mirror for defamation. The paper defended the action, not upon the basis that it had run a true story, but under the ancient English doctrine of "attainder", Dugan, as a convicted capital felon, was of "corrupt blood" and simply had no civil rights. You did that pro bono and in due course that became Dugan v Mirror Newspapers Limited.
18 You are notoriously calm and softly spoken. I have never known you to lose your temper, anger being not one of your personal qualities. Even mild irritation comes slowly to you. To this statement there is at least one exception. I learnt very early that it annoyed you intensely if someone spoke your surname with an "S" on the end. For this reason, I always encouraged my opponents, particularly barristers from Victoria appearing in cases before you, to call you Justice Woods at every available opportunity.
19 Your commission as one of Her Majesty's counsel did not ease your strenuous workload. You practised as a silk for all too short a period. Your appointment to this Court on 1 February 1984 followed your close association with law reform through The Law Council of Australia, The Australian Law Reform Commission and the New South Wales Law Reform Commission. You had accepted appointment to the latter body as full-time commissioner in 1982.
20 You leave today as the Chief Judge at Common Law and after serving more than twenty-one and a half years as a judge of this Court. It isn't possible in the time available to list your achievements during that period. You have, however, as has been mentioned, been notably associated with streamlining the Court's procedures with a commitment to case management in the Common Law Division. Under your guidance and driven by your enthusiasm, a number of strategies evolved which remain present as keystones for effective case disposition and management today. One of these was the adoption of what you described as "a firm and consistent adjournment policy". History records that Justice Cole, one of your colleagues from the seventh floor of Wentworth, embraced this policy and refined it to its purest form: He never granted adjournments under any circumstances.
21 Your life as a judge - indeed your life - has been a quest in search of justice for all. Notwithstanding your recognition of the need for case management, you do not lose sight of the rights and needs of litigants. Writing in the Journal of Judicial Administration in 1991 you said of the new guidelines that:
"...while justice should be speedy and inexpensive, the ultimate aim is justice. A system which overlooks, in its quest for optimum disposition statistics, the need for individual parties to receive a just result, fails. The human dimension, and the unevenness of resources between litigants, cannot be overlooked, and there must be some flexibility to accommodate this. That does not that mean there should be an overall lowering of professional standards; it does mean that the Court and the profession should be anxious to set performance and time standards which reflect a proper balance between access to the courts, timely disposition of cases, and the delivery of a just result."
22 Through it all your Honour managed always to retain a sense of humour. On one occasion I remember an unrepresented litigant appeared before you. You asked him if he had a barrister. The man replied, "George W Bush is my barrister." Your Honour replied, "I've heard of him and he's very good, but if you want my opinion you would do much better using someone local."
23 Your Honour was also an enthusiastic proponent of refining - not to say revolutionising - the way in which courts receive expert evidence. So impassioned by this topic were you that you unselfishly volunteered to deliver a paper entitled "Expert Witnesses - The New Era" to the Eighth Greek Australian International Legal Conference in 2001 held on Corfu. I have read your Honour's paper with great interest. It revealed a lot about you which isn't well known. For example, your paper expressed enthusiastic support for "hot tubbing". Your Honour is a Knox Old Boy but these views seem very Cranbrook to me.
24 However, I should have known that your Honour would lend your considerable intellectual support to these reforms. I remember appearing before you in a multi-party case which you very generously listed for hearing at Katoomba in July. The case was quite technically complex and your Honour was presented with the questionable benefit of expert evidence from a very large range of experts on an issue about which ultimately you were able to secure significant agreement. However, in the course of one adjournment for morning tea, you rather showed your hand on what your thoughts about experts might be when you told us the following:
"Experts are people who know much about a little and continue to learn more about less until they know everything about nothing. Barristers know a little about a lot, learning less about more until they know nothing about almost everything. Judges begin knowing everything, but end up knowing nothing. This is caused by barristers and experts."
25 No review of your considerable achievements would be complete without mentioning again the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service. The commission was established in May 1994 with broad terms of reference into the existence of corruption within the Police Service, the efficacy of its internal informant's program and of its internal affairs branch. Two interim reports recommending urgent change in the internal investigation structure and in the disciplinary/dismissal procedures, followed by a final report released in May 1997. Along the way it established a multidisciplinary task force, carried out proactive current investigations involving extensive physical and electronic surveillance, and public hearings at which suspect officers were examined on oath both in relation to their policing activities, and financial means. It is a testament to the significance of your work as the Royal Commissioner that reference to that Royal Commission never seems to be far below public consciousness. How well do we remember all the nightly news in 1995, dominated alternately by pictures of your Honour presiding over the hearings followed by anatomically less flattering views from the glovebox of unsuspecting participants in corrupt conduct. It is not well known, but the New South Wales Police Service manual now prescribes that no member of the Police Service, of or above the rank of sergeant, shall wear loose fitting shorts in the passenger seat of an official Police Service patrol car.
26 The Royal Commission was a catalyst for many changes. Not the least of which was the New South Wales Drug Summit in the success of which you played a critical role. The enlightened decision to establish the clinically supervised injecting room at Kings Cross was in no small part as a result of your Honour's work as the Royal Commissioner and; your subsequent tireless contribution to that important debate. On 14 November 1999, at the invitation of the Reverend Bill Crews, your Honour delivered an address entitled "Matters of Principle - a Reflection on the Judicial Conscience". The text of that address prompted one member of the New South Wales Legislative Council to ask the then Attorney General two days later a question without notice which was "Is it a fact that last Sunday Justice Wood encouraged judges to follow their conscience and not uphold the letter of the law?" The answer to that mischievous question should have been obvious, as a reading of your Honour's address would have revealed. Your Honour's thoughts, which should be compulsory fare for all those whose families have not been touched by the scourge of narcotic addition, concluded with the following words:
"It is my hope there will be judges into the next century who are prepared to dare, to listen to their consciences and their faith, and to take a stand against the unjust laws and policies of the secular state. At least let them not allow injustice to be committed in their names."
27 Your Honour came to this Court with a great reputation for humanity and compassion. You leave this Court with that reputation undiminished and the standing of this court enhanced. Moreover, two decades on this bench have not dulled your passion for physical exercise and fitness. In fact, the Chief Justice has informed me that as a direct result of your fine example in this regard, all but four current judges of this Court are either regularly jogging in the Domain and Hyde Park or have engaged the services of a personal trainer. The results of all this effort are clearly visible here today. I am informed as well by the Chief Justice that of the four not training, and they know who they are, one claims to have a war wound, and the other three have been granted exemptions on compassionate grounds.
28 On behalf of the bar and myself, may I wish you farewell and success in your next frenetic endeavour.
29 May it please the Court.
30 MR J E McINTYRE PRESIDENT LAW SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES: It gives me great pleasure to address the Court this morning on the occasion marking the retirement of your Honour as Chief Judge at Common Law of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
31 Your Honour's contribution has extended far beyond your duties as a judge of this Court. Indeed, your Honour's achievements and standing have been appropriately recognised at the highest level by the award of an Order of Australia.
32 Your Honour's illustrious legal career began as a solicitor in 1965 where you joined the firm of Dudley Westgarth, which is now known as Corrs. You continued your employment with that firm and were made a partner until you became a barrister in 1970.
33 In a recent interview with The Sydney Morning Herald you declared that one of your career highlights has been your involvement with the New South Wales Police Royal Commission. Much has been said about that already this morning. As Royal Commissioner you were appointed to lead one of the most arduous and widely publicised inquiries ever to have taken place in the history of this State. The commission was indeed a sizeable operation which involved approximately 200 staff and occupied seven floors of a large commercial building in Sydney. A new courtroom was built which would at the time have been one of the most advanced in the world.
34 During the inquiry's infancy, a number of people said that if anyone was going to get to the bottom of these matters, it would be your Honour. You adopted techniques that were both skilful and unique to investigate allegations of entrenched corruption in the New South Wales Police Force. You successfully used all available means at your disposal to delve into these complex issues. In the past, others had attempted to uncover similar practices but had filed. You did not.
35 The Royal Commission attracted more than its fair share of media and public attention. Regrettably at times it meant that the Commission was under criticism for not doing enough. In hindsight, a rather extraordinary claim. A lot of the work that went on behind the scenes could not be released into the public domain for reasons that it would inhibit the Commission's operation, but at all times your Honour demonstrated complete control and took a principled approach when responding to the critics. You also engendered a spirit with all the people that worked with you and that same spirit has been exemplified by your Honour's career on this Bench.
36 In the courtroom it has been repeatedly stated that your Honour has always displayed the utmost courtesy and respect to legal practitioners, litigants, witnesses and members of your staff. Your brother Judges describe you as self effacing with an exceptionally brilliant mind.
37 Your Honour has been a prodigious writer and has published a number of papers covering matters ranging from police corruption, sexual abuse of children, judicial education, crime in cyberspace, professional negligence and civil and criminal case management. These publications have been, and will continue to be, invaluable sources of reference for the legal profession.
38 But perhaps your most acclaimed publication is still to come. I am told that you are currently preparing and illustrating for your grandchildren a book detailing the life and travels of Uncle Bolger, the famous Wood family pirate, whose tales captivated you as a child. I am told it is a guaranteed best seller.
39 On another family note, I am told that although your wife and three children are extremely proud of your legal achievements, they are not encouraging you to embark on another work career as a plumber. I have been told of an incident which involved your Honour endeavouring to fix a leaking shower rose in what can only be described as a less than conventional manner. With the assistance of a garbage bag and tennis broom, your Honour tried to contain the leak. What ended in an explosion of water all over the bathroom and an emergency call to the plumber is still to this day defended by your Honour as a masterful plan based on solid science.
40 Your Honour, the number of people here today to celebrate your retirement is testimony to the admiration and respect held for you. You will be warmly remembered as one of the great Judges of this Court over the last twenty years.
41 On behalf of the solicitors of this State, may I congratulate you on your past achievements and wish you well in your new endeavours. I trust the journey you are about to embark on is accompanied by new and exciting challenges.
42 WOOD CJ at CL: Chief Justice, Mr Harrison, Mr McIntyre, fellow judges, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your very generous words of tribute. I am not at all sure that I am well placed at the moment to respond to those exceedingly kind observations, which have only added to the wrench of leaving behind twenty-one very enjoyable and rewarding years with this Court, which seem to have commenced only yesterday.
43 Thank you also to those who have been so considerate to have attended today. Among you I see so many friends and colleagues with whom I have had the pleasure of working. I deeply appreciate your attendance, as I do the best wishes of those who have written to me.
44 Mr McIntyre, I am pleased that you raised the topic of plumbing of an innovative kind with me. It is something of a taboo topic within our family but I still remain convinced that, at some point, plastic bag equilibrium can be obtained, and a leaking tap dealt with.
45 Plumbing aside, mine has been the most fortunate life. I had the privilege of being educated a time when universities were accessible to all and of then practising at the bar in its glory days, a time when it was possible to have a generalist practice in many jurisdictions and to rub shoulders on a daily basis with the giants of the bar.
46 The early experience of regular appearances in Courts of Petty Sessions called for the development of real skills in advocacy, as well as a meticulous attention to the laws of evidence, and an understanding of human behaviour in all of its usual and unusual forms.
47 It was in that last mentioned area that exposure to jury trial work, now largely confined to criminal cases, was so valuable, since it kept judges in touch with everyday values and thinking. I leave the Bench retaining the very high regard for the commonsense and responsible approach of juries which I had when I joined it.
48 There were in those earlier days the wonderful opportunities now gone of the extensive country circuits, which were of such importance to regional areas, and which opened our eyes to a wide variety of activities on rural properties, in mines, on dirt roads, in bush hotels and in other places where both lawful and unlawful activities were wont to take place. Not only was there an opportunity to fly the Court's flag, but the circuits provided a significant economic boost to local communities.
49 My own discovery had occurred somewhat earlier at the end of my schooling when I was able to work on a sheep property in the Central West. They were wonderful days and they made my later circuit work all the more understandable and enjoyable. My memories of those circuits, both as counsel and as a judge, extend not only to the cases decided, many of which were both sad and troubling, but also to the humorous moments.
50 I can recall being delivered to opening church services in mud-covered Land Rovers in the rain; of being driven frantically around town by a police officer who had forgotten where the opening service was to be held; and of circuit traditions such as the riverbed barbecue at Broken Hill, the Slattery Cup, and the Tamworth Pig.
51 There was one particularly memorable procession through the streets of Dubbo from St Brigids Church to the courthouse. As I recall it, although I readily confess that my memory may have gotten away from me to some extent, there was a very large attendance of the profession, because this was in the days of the maxi circuits. We set out from the church led by a very fit and athletic Inspector of Police. He was followed by a pipe band which materialised from somewhere (possibly by mistake), then by my tipstaff, myself, my associate, the Bishop of Dubbo, his various assistants, the St Brigids choir, and finally the profession.
52 We were all in ceremonial robes and moved off down the road at a very great pace following the Police Inspector, who was obviously determined to clear Brisbane Street of this public nuisance as quickly as he could. Before long I became concerned that some of those behind might expire from cardiac arrest, and I stepped out of line to see how far ahead was the Inspector and how far behind were the laggards. As I did so, I noticed a large hole in the road ahead and had a fit of the giggles as I foresaw the whole procession disappearing into it. As we reached this hole, a mud-covered face with an astonished look on his face emerged. I will never forget his inquiry: "Oy, what do you lot think you are doing?" This brought us all to a sudden stop with the inevitable consequence of half of the procession falling over, and one of the bagpipes exploding - at least my memory or perhaps my imagination tells me that it did. Perhaps I should return to my text.
53 I have never made any claim on the Bench to academic excellence, nor have I ever had an eye to being part of jurisprudential history. On the contrary, I have been proud to have served as a journeyman judge, trying to resolve as fairly as possible the problems of those who have had the misfortune of being physically injured or misused at the hands of others.
54 Inevitably, the primary focus of my time on the Bench has been on the Court's criminal workload. It was the intense interest which I had in this area of human activity that led to my involvement as junior counsel for the Police Service in the Moffit Royal Commission into the Mafia in the Clubs, and then as a Judge conducting an inquiry into the convictions of the Ananda Marga Three and later the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service.
55 Certainly during my years at the bar and my early years on the Bench, I was aware of the concerns that were frequently expressed in relation to the possibilities of the abuse of the criminal justice system by those who were minded to do so. While I do not claim credit for what followed the Royal Commission, since it was the New South Wales Police which effected the necessary changes, I believe that one can say with confidence that the way in which law enforcement now operates is light years away from that which was the norm when I began to practise in the 1960s. The Service has on any fair assessment made very significant strides since then, most particularly in recent years, in embracing professionalism and proper standards of conduct.
56 It has had to do so in the face of two most serious challenges to law and order, each of which emerged during my time in practice or on the Bench. The first concerns the organised trade in drugs which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It changed forever the face of crime in this State, insofar as a different category of offender chose to enter the criminal ranks, and it has presented a real threat to the well-being of the community, particularly that of its youth. Paradoxically, it has been instrumental in bringing about a significant shift in policing to evidence-based investigations, that is, inquiries which are principally dependent upon the use of forensic science, electronic and physical surveillance and the like, which are capable of identifying the true suspect, while at the same time providing hard and incontrovertible evidence.
57 Necessarily and justifiably, this has involved some degree of erosion of private rights and civil liberties, which were once considered sacrosanct, through legislation permitting, for example, detention without charge for the purposes of questioning, the involuntary supply of forensic samples, and the electronic interception of private conversations. Without these weapons, the war against drugs could only be fought with one hand or not at all.
58 The second challenge of substance to law and order which has emerged is that of terrorism. This form of mindless, brutal and cowardly crime, for that is what it is, inevitably calls for the creation of new offences and for a further significant increase in police powers and in the incidence of public surveillance.
59 The need for absolute professionalism and genuine integrity on the part of law enforcement agencies when they come to exercise these enhanced powers in meeting global crime, where terrorism, drug dealing and cyber crime can so easily overlap is undeniable. So is the need for courts, as independent gatekeepers and protectors of human rights, to strike the necessary balance which permits their effective and lawful use, in the interests of State security, yet allows for a halt to be called where the line has been crossed.
60 There is every room for confidence in the law enforcement agencies, as they currently exist, to discharge their duties ethically and professionally in relation to these two serious and ongoing challenges to law and order. Equally, there is every room for confidence in the bar and courts of this State to exercise their independence and commonsense in the application of these laws.
61 The one thing which has in fact stood out in my years on the Bench has been the absolute absence of any occasion for a judge of this State to confront the warning of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The First Circle to the following effect:
"What is the most precious thing in the world? It seems to be the consciousness of not participating in injustice. Injustice is stronger than you are, it always was and it always will be; but let it not be committed through you."
62 Those words have helped guide me through my career. Their acceptance marks the divide between those countries where the judiciary, as an institution, is respected and those where it is regarded as a mere cipher of the government of the day.
63 Enough, however, said of my experiences as a judge since 1984. It remains for me to express my deepest gratitude for those who worked as my associates and tipstaves over the years; namely, Helen Rand, Carolyn Burton, Phillip Roberts, John Bignall, Graeme Anderson, Paul Field and Ken Atkins. I am proud to have them as friends and for their loyalty and assistance I owe an enormous debt.
64 I wish to express my gratitude for the support and friendship of all the judges, associate judges, and registrars of the court with whom I have worked over these twenty-one years, and most particularly those in the Common Law Division who work truly hard in some of the most difficult and controversial areas of the law.
65 May I next acknowledge the privilege I have had of serving under three truly great Chief Justices of this State: Sir Lawrence Street, Chief Justice Gleeson and Chief Justice Spigelman. Each has been inspiration to me and a wonderful leader of this Court.
66 It is also timely that I refer to the enormous contribution of the members of the Executive and of all those who work in the Registry. Rarely is there an opportunity to acknowledge the part which they play. May I do so now.
67 Finally, may I return to where I came in - my fortunate life. Of all the things which have been of the greatest pleasure for me has been the love and support of my wife Jenni, of my children Nicholas, Sarah and Kate, and of my grandchildren. Without them I would not have been qualified, let alone able to undertake the service of a judge, which it has been a privilege to perform. Their support, particularly during the Royal Commission years, is deeply appreciated. It is now my intention to spend a good deal more time with them and to see a little more of the life that we have.
68 In thinking about the future, I made a somewhat fruitless search in the literature for some memorable observation that would be suitable for a retirement or a farewell and by which I could end this address. All I was able to find were the heroic although misguided final words of people such as General Custer at Little Big Horn and of a certain Antarctic explorer of note. However, thanks to the suggestion of my friend and colleague Mervyn Finlay, my attention was drawn to the somewhat more positive advice from Norman Lindsay's "The Magic Pudding" as to how one should approach retirement:
"Assume an air of pleasure,
And tell the people near and far
You stroll about because you are
A gentleman of leisure."
69 That is how I hope to take my leave, with pride and pleasure at having been a judge of this Court, with a good deal of sadness at leaving it all behind, but with a commitment to make the most of the new opportunities which have opened up for me.
70 Thank you again for honouring me on this occasion.
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