Nought out of three
Aziz (Greg) Melick AO RFD KC is an adornment to Hobart society. A Major General with the Royal Tasmanian Regiment; former National President of the RSL; a former statutory member of the National Crime Commission; also an ex-part-time member of the NSW Casino Control Authority; former Deputy President of the AAT; a Special Investigator with the Australian Cricket Board; Chief Commissioner of the Integrity Commission of Tasmania; an leading Apple Isle oenophile; and a man with the ear of the highest reaches of the Tasmanian politburo – among other things.
So he must have been dismayed to discover the wholesale dismemberment by the Full Feds of his AAT reasons dealing with an application for access to NIDS by a medically compromised citizen.
The Agency succeeded on all the grounds in the questions that formed the basis of the Agency’s appeal.
Carol Lampart had a significant range of issues, all going on at the same time: anorexia nervosa; major depressive disorder; anxiety and compulsive adjustment disorder.
Plus, numerous physical conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder; osteoporosis; degenerative disc disease; disc bulge and stenosis; chronic papillomavirus leading to incontinence; and irritable bowel syndrome.
Deputy President Greg set aside an internal review decision that refused Carol’s application and instead he found she met the access criteria, being the disability requirements of the Act.
The NDIA appealed to the Full Feds, with Robert Bromwich, Penelope Neskovcin and Samuel Vandongen going the judging – and it was here that Major General Melick was not spared the birch.
• The Deputy President’s reasoning was “sparse, if not perfunctory” – largely comprising direct quotes and summaries of the parties submissions, with little or nothing added. His conclusions were provided but “not his reasons for reaching them” [62].
• “… the manifest defects in the AAT’s approach were compounded beyond rescue when it considered the issue of permanence without taking the necessary first step of identifying the relevant impairment” [77].
• “The absent reasoning as to impairment and the resultant defective reasoning as to permanence meant that the proper question as to Ms Lampard’s capacity to undertake social interaction was never even referred to, much less considered, by reference to any such impairment” [78].
• “… there was a valiant effort made on behalf of Ms Lampard to rescue this manifestly defective reasoning by the AAT, to no avail” [86].
Ouch.
See: NDIA v Lampard – Full Federal Court
The prat from Goldstein
Electors of Goldstein got the raw end of the prawn when the Liberal’s ghastly Tim Wilson (aka Freedom Boy) took the seat from the Teal’s Zoe Daniel by 175 votes.
Wilson was plucked from the Institute for Paid Advocacy by his mentor, Attorney General George (Bookshelves) Brandis “KC”, and dispatched to the Human Rights Commissioner on a bloated salary.
His perch at the Commission was dedicated to tilling the soil for political advancement and getting his ample posterior on the green leather in Canberra.
A field agent has sent our News Desk a speech to parliament from Mark Dreyfus MP, KC, member for Isaacs, which is a neighbour of the Goldstein electorate.
Not much has been heard from Dreyfus since he was unceremoniously defenestrated by Richard Marles’ forces of darkness after the May election, yet in his address-in-reply to the Governor-General’s speech he accused Wilson’s campaign workers of conducting a crusade of verbal abuse, violence, and death threats.
“Mr Wilson did not condemn these incidents. He made excuses instead of accepting responsibility … he even attempted to justify one of these incidents, absurdly suggesting his campaign volunteer has low blood sugar levels.”
One of the Wilsonites called a 17-year old woman on the opposing team “little scum”. Freedom Boy’s true charm emerged when he shouted at a member of Ms Daniel’s staff, “Enjoy your last week”.
Such were the threats that the Teal MP had to engage security protection from the AFP for the last week of the campaign.
Dreyfus told parliament that despite the intimidation Zoe Daniel conducted herself as a “model of integrity”.
The beastliness continued during the recount, “where Mr Wilson’s campaign scrutineers were encouraged to intimidate, distract and use standover tactics against Ms Daniel’s scrutineers”.
Timbo Wilson – the face of the modern Liberal Party.
See: Drayfus (Isaacs) speech – House of Representatives
Life after constitutional senility
A fresh soft landing for rusticated judges has opened up in Dubai. In fact, three retired Australian judges have climbed aboard the DIFC – English language common law courts connected to the Dubai International Financial Centre, dealing with civil and commercial national and transnational disputes.
His Excellency Wayne Martin, former CJ of WA, is the Chief Justice. He was initially appointed in 2022 as the judge in charge of the technology and construction division.
His Excellency Robert French, previously the CJ of the High Court, is also a judicial officer of DIFC. Previously he did time on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.
Last November, the creepy looking Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, appointed Tom Bathurst as an appeal judge in the DIFC courts.
In April 2023, Tom was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star for promoting mutual understudying with the Japanese judiciary.
Alongside Tom, former WA judge Rene Le Miere is also on the DIFC courts’ appeal bench
The Australians are joined by other retirees from the British courts and UAE lawyers.
Happily, the DIFC courts don’t deal with “Detained in Dubai” cases, where unfortunate business people and others have found themselves hauled into pokey on flakey charges, for extended stretches.
Al Maktoum has six wives and 23 children. He is the absolute ruler of Dubai and runs the place as his personal fiefdom, merging his own commercial interest with those of the state.
In March 2018 the Sheik arranged for the abduction and forcible restraint of his daughter Sheikha Latifa from aboard the yacht Nostromo in the Indian Ocean – in an operation jointly conducted by India and the Emirates.
She was fleeing her family, claiming that she had been subject to abuse and her father had committed several murders, including the murder of the wife of his deceased brother.
His second “official wife” Princess Haya from Jordan had greater success in fleeing and subsequently an English court found she was the victim of domestic abuse and murderous threats orchestrated by the Sheik.
That’s the murky side of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s regime, in which the Australian judges hold their commissions.
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Meanwhile, in Hong Kong Australia’s finest – the one-legged Russian William Gummov, Patrick Keane, and “Chuckles” Allsop – sit astride the Court of Final Appeal as “non-permanent judges” doing their best to apply common law principles to CCP ukase.
It was all too much for Jim Spigelman, who fled the court in 2020 after Carrie Lam, the Hong Kong Chief Executive, declared that there was no such thing as the separation of powers in the Special Administrative Region.