Solo bows ceremony grips Molonglo Supremes ... Press releases flowing from the QE11 Cauldron ... Slater & Gordon minting it as acquisitions pile up
A decent sort of Bows Ceremony
The gush of effusion from the Molonglo Chief Justice to initiate ACT DPP John White into the territory's select society of senior counsel was a thing to behold.
A special ceremony was held on Tuesday (August 12) to heap praise on the one and only member of the local bar to clamber aboard the 2014 silk train.
Chief Justice Helen Murrell described White as: learned, skilled, experienced, honest, independent, steadfastly independent, passionate, serious, modest, academic, loyal, much loved, brave and a feminist.
People were scratching their wigs trying to remember when a bows ceremony had previously been turned into a orgy of thanksgiving for a solitary silk entrant.
They are also trying to remember the special brilliance that the ACT DPP has exhibited in the six years since Whitey took the helm.
Here are Murrell's remarks.
McMurdo Sound
More dark happenings at the QE11 Cauldron as judicial press releases in response to "news" reports in The Government Gazette (aka The Bowen Hills Bugle) keep on coming.
The Gazette reported this morning (Fri. Aug. 15) that Chief Justice Knock-About, "has revealed a special sub-committee has been set up to investigate the possibility of televised proceedings and live streaming".
Readers were also informed ...
"Court of Appeal President Justice Margaret McMurdo and Justice Debra Mullins have been appointed to the special sub-committee."
This was news to McMurdo P, who shot-off this press release:
"I have not discussed this issue with Chief Justice Carmody. There is no such task force or sub-committee as far as I'm aware."
What does this mean? Cauldronoligists has been studying the tea leaves at the bottom of Knock-About's cup. The Gazette says that the news had been "revealed" by Carmody, so why is he releasing it without telling the P?
Did he seek guidance from Nikki Gemmell for this initiative?
In any event, it's an uplifting example of the smooth flow of communications between front row forwards at the Cauldron. Here we have the Gov Gazette editorialising enthusiactically in favour of a sub-committee that is a phantom.
Only last month Philip McMurdo, Martin Daubney and David Boddice inked-up the Gerstner machine and pumped out a release in response to another of the Gazette's beautifully crafted stories.
Personal injury news
In its territorial pillage and plunder Slater & Gordon picks some glamorous conquests.
The acquisition of Keddies was a marvellous turning point and attached no end of lustre to the multi-national injury shop.
Now news comes to hand that S & G are to gobble up Nowicki Carbone in Victoria, along with Schultz Toomey O'Brien in Queensland.
Harry Nowicki has been out of the shop for a while, but mention of this takeover by Slaters brought history flooding back.
In May 2011 Harry was the subject of unfortunate findings by VCAT about swearing a false affidavit.
Nowicki more recently has been mentioned in dispatches, allegedly offering a $200,000 inducement to former AWU official Bruce Wilson to concoct a statement about Julia Gillard's home renos being paid by a union slush fund.
Harry denies such a dreadful offer was made.
Markson: What did Julia have for breakfast?
Wilson says the wheeler-dealer celebrity agent Max Markson turned up at one of his meetings with the retired proctor, which suggests that things were getting pretty serious.
According to the witness statement, Max said he "was interested in such things as who cooked the breakfast in the morning when I was in a relationship with Gillard".
Max is the father of Sharri Markson, the official Hansard reporter for Chris Mitchell, ed-in-chief of The Australian.
In Wilson's statement to Dyse Heyson's Get The Unions Commission, he reports that Slater & Gordon had been flirting with Nowicki for some time.
Nowicki allegedly boasted that he is independently wealthy and had a personal injury practice which he once almost sold to Slater & Gordon. "He said he was not happy Slater & Gordon didn't buy his business," Wilson alleged.
Former AWU assistant secretary Ralph Blewitt also told Dyse that the statement he provided to the Victorian police was not written by him, but by Nowicki.
"I didn't write this statement, I didn't type it. I glanced at it."
Curiously, Dyse has ruled that the material about Nowicki's behaviour is irrelevant to his inquiry and there's no need for any cross-examination in connection with it.
Amazing.
Slater & Gordon has just posted its annual results. Revenue was up 40 percent to $418.5 with the full-year profit up 47 percent to $61.1 million. Next year the forecast revenue is $500 million.
The acquisition of Harry's old shop and the Queensland consumer law firm will cost $45.2 million in cash and nearly $19 million in shares.
Happily, one of the partners at Nowicki Carbone joining S & G is Don Maffia.