Banana Bending barristers are trying to get a grip on how things work at the Bar n Grill.

Take the famous tenor, Matthew Hickey KC.

In December, the ABC reported that the well-padded silk was behind in his tax to the tune of $2.7 million, relating to debts and penalties stretching back to 2013.

A default judgment has been entered in the Qld Supremes.

Hickey is well regarded and operates out of the glitzy Level 27 Chambers in George Street, with a bursting list of specialities, including bankruptcy and insolvency.

According to court documents uncovered by Aunty, Hickey’s outstanding tax and penalties are about $500,000, with another $2 million related to “business activities” and penalty interest.

It’s a mountainous pile of a problem. These things can quickly get out of hand when taxpayers take their eye off the ball.

The management of the local Grill must be confident that things are under control. Hickey still has a ticket of trade without any conditions attached.

It would be unusual if he had not disclosed his tax problem when he successfully applied for silk in 2024.

Some of Matthew’s work with the Ten Tenors is available on Spotify, including his song Because of You.

In October 2024, the BAQ refused to renew the ticket of Salvatore Di Carlo. Sammy had a colourful record, including failure to pay tax for many years and failure to disclose various setbacks.

Compared to Matthew Hickey, Salvatore’s tax debt of $398,329 is a trifle.

He applied for a review of the BAQ’s confiscation of his ticket, which was dismissed by former National Party candidate, now Justice Tom Bradley, sitting in QCAT.

HH had earlier campaigned to reject women becoming members of Tattersall’s Club in Brisbane, and here he is keen to stop Di Carlo getting back to the Bar:

“The applicant knew he was not paying any income tax and was not even remitting the GST others had paid to him to remit to the ATO. He knew the money he spent on any other thing was money he was denying the ATO. This was wrong. At best, this was irresponsible or reckless. To describe it as an administrative failure is inadequate. Most right-thinking members of the community expect people to honour their obligations to meet their debts, if they can. The applicant’s failure to do so, over a long period, would lead most people to conclude he was not a fit and proper person to hold a PC.”

The other Banana Bender of interest is Walter Sofronoff, aka “Water Softener”.

He is currently appealing Justice Wendy Abraham, who upheld the ACT Integrity Commission’s finding of “serious corrupt conduct”.

This arose because of his close connection with rule of law and ethics expert Janet Albrechtsen, while he investigated the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann, resulting in critical findings against the ACT DPP, Shane Drumgold

Planet Janet managed to get under Walter’s guard and extract crucial information that informed her obsessive and misguided campaign against Drumgold.

Walter is not listed on the BAQ website but is to be found at Murray Gleeson Chambers doing mediation, arbitration and advisory work.

If Walker’s appeal is unsuccessful, and Matthew can’t come to an arrangement with the ATO, the Bar nabobs will one day get around to thinking about what to do.

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Trevor Quoll, our man in Hobart, reports that Lloyd Babb SC has been given a special mission to clear the backlog of the island courts.

Lloyd has had stints as the NSW DPP and, more recently, the DPP of the NT.

Now he has been commissioned by Taswegian AG Guy Barnett to develop a “sustained system-wide response” to clear the lists.

Guy wants him to focus on “identifying strategies and mechanisms to support case flow” and to develop a “framework to measure the effectiveness of new strategies”.

The AG calls this a “backlog action plan”. Good luck with that.

Old timers say the problems with the island’s courts are “entrenched”. In crime, police disclosure time is unacceptable; there are no automatic costs orders in the Magistrates Court; and the system is burdened with petty drug offences and shoplifting that should go to diversion.

Babb is the latest outsider recruited to smooth the operation of Tasmania’s law and justice machine. The other was the 2024 appointment of Chris Shenanigans CJ, out of WA’s wide blue yonder.

In October last year, Buffalo Bruce filed from Darwin with news about the Jake Danby case, where an Indigenous man was killed and another seriously wounded by a non-Aboriginal hit-and-run offender – the step-son of the NT Attorney General’s sister.

Dandy, who directed a racist diatribe against the deceased, was prosecuted by Lloyd Babb’s office for the offence of failing to stop at the scene of an accident. He pleaded guilty and received a non-custodial sentence.

On another, but similar, occasion, Babb’s people charged an Aboriginal man, Stephen Rioli, with the more serious offence of driving dangerously causing death.

Acting NT Justice Lex Lasry sentenced Rioli, who he described as a person of good character, to three years and six months’ prison time, suspended after 18 months.

The disparity in the way Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders are charged is a notable feature of the NT justice system.

While he was the Territory’s chief prosecutor, Lloyd hired his son and daughter-in-law for short-term jobs in his office. The positions were not openly advertised.