Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Potty Mouth Solicitor Dispatched ... NSW Court of Appeal takes dim view of solicitor who laced his correspondence with disrespectful insults ... Insufficiently professional ... Arrived from Greece with only his underpants ... No contrition ... Anthony Kanaan files ... Read more >>

Politics Media Law Society


The End Of The Affair ... Lord Moloch’s bid for more Fox News fans … The Wall Street Journal rallies the MAGA base …Will the old rogue abandon his journalists? … Is “bawdy” the right word here? … The Deep State plumbs the depths … John and Stanley Roth’s generosity to loving causes ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Suing for defamation - it's such a good idea ...Federal Court of Australia ... Sydney barrister loses bid for extension of time to bring appeal over decision allowing Giles George to intervene to seek an equitable lien over costs ... Falling out between barrister and firm after successful defamation action ... No error or procedural unfairness ... From Stephen Murray at the Gazette of Law & Journalism ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


Major victory for the media as public interest defence established in large and lengthy defamation case brought by orthopaedic surgeon ... Al Muderis v Nine Network, Fairfax and The Age ... Good journalism wins the day ... More >> 

Justinian's Bloggers

Postcard from London ... Summertime - And the living' is easy ... Votes for 16-year olds ... Paralegal's theft by pen ... Spy helping British intelligence from his job at Border Force ... Super-injunction comes out of the shadows ... Feed them strawberries and cream ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"I've stopped six wars in the last - I'm averaging about a war a month. But the last three were very close together. India and Pakistan, and a lot of them. Congo was just and Rwanda was just done, but you probably know I won't go into it very much, because I don't know the final numbers yet. I don't know. Numerous people were killed, and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They've been fighting for 500 years, intermittently, and we solved that war. You probably saw it just came out over the wire, so we solved it ..."

President Donald Trump at a meeting in Scotland with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer ... July 28, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Home Duties ... The dumping of Attorney General Mark Dreyfus ... Behind the scenes ... Bastardry among the brothers ... Unfinished business ... Family law, privacy ... Considerable policy and legislative results ... Here's Michelle Rowland as AG ... What are her priors? ... Polly Peck reports from the Gallery ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Abolish silks ... Sydney SC writes to the editor calling for abolition of the silk system ... Appointments are anachronistic ... It's not a matter of ability, only notability ... Secret blackballing ... "Corrupt" process ... Confessions from an insider who played the game ... From Justinian's Archive, October 24, 2002 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« David Jackson QC | Main | Top End trauma »
Thursday
Feb272020

RIP Mighty Mouse

Hazel Murphy - marketing marvel for Australian wine in the UK and Europe ... Obit from Justinian's wine correspondent Gabriel Wendler ... Bron Waugh became a believer ... "Chateau Chunder" rendered obsolete  

Hazel Murphy, affectionately known  as "Mighty Mouse" died in England in late December last year. She was 71 years of age.

I dare say most wine enthusiasts are not immediately familiar with the life and astonishing wine industry achievements of Hazel Murphy.

She joined the Australian Trade Commission in 1972. Ultimately she was elevated to chief executive of the Australian Wine Bureau in 1985. For some 45 years she enthusiastically  promoted Australian wines in the UK and Europe.

In 1996 she was awarded the Order of Australia and the Maurice O'Shea Award  in recognition of her indefatigable marketing of Australian wines in the UK. 

It is argued Hazel singlehandedly grew Australian wine exports from $A1.4 million AUD in 1985 to $A897 million by 2002. Although her success in the area of Australian wine promotion was recognised she was utterly disinterested in adulation. 

James Halliday reported that Hazel Murphy "... in less than a decade poured Australian wine for 250,000 people in venues ranging from food exhibitions to sporting events".

Hazel Murphy: poured Australian wine down a quarter of a million throats

In the 1990s she arranged promotional trips for wine critics and wine industry executives to the vineyards of Australia. On one of these trips she invited the controversial writer and wine critic Auberon "Bron" Waugh - eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh.

"Bron" was a clever snob who seriously believed that:

"Generally speaking the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law." 

Waugh was notorious for inventing weird and crazy descriptions of wine, for example, a particular Spanish wine reminded him of "a bunch of dead chrysanthemums on the grave of a stillborn West Indian baby".

He famously described one Australia wine as "banging like a shit-house door in a gale". 

Hazel Murphy was responsible for Waugh's wine experience in Australia and his admiration for all styles of red and white Australian wines. He often recommended them in his Spectator wine column.

Her funeral wish was to keep it simple and to raise a glass, presumably of Australian wine,  in her honour. 

From Gabriel Wendler, 7 Windeyer Chambers, Sydney

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.