Ceremonial Sitting of the Full Court
to Welcome the Honourable Justice Stellios
Transcript of proceedings
The Honourable Justice Nye Perram, Presiding
The Honourable Justice John Nicholas
The Honourable Justice Anna Katzmann
The Honourable Justice Melissa Perry
The Honourable Justice Brigitte Markovic
The Honourable Justice Robert Bromwich
The Honourable Justice Michael Lee
The Honourable Justice Thomas Thawley
The Honourable Justice Angus Stewart
The Honourable Justice Wendy Abraham
The Honourable Justice John Halley
The Honourable Justice Kylie Downes
The Honourable Justice Scott Goodman
The Honourable Justice Elizabeth Raper
The Honourable Justice Geoffrey Kennett
The Honourable Justice Ian Jackman
The Honourable Justice Christopher Horan
The Honourable Justice Yaseen Shariff
The Honourable Justice Jane Needham
The Honourable Justice Stephen McDonald
The Honourable Justice Cameron Moore
The Honourable Justice Nicholas Owens
The Honourable Justice James Stellios
The Honourable Justice Houda Younan
SYDNEY
9.16 AM, FRIDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2025
Copyright in Transcript is owned by the Commonwealth of Australia. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 you are not permitted to reproduce, adapt, re-transmit or distribute the Transcript material in any form or by any means without seeking prior written approval.
PERRAM J: The Court is honoured by the presence of so many distinguished guests to mark the occasion of this, our formal welcome for Justice Stellios. May I begin by offering my respects to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation on whose traditional lands the Court now stands, and may I then acknowledge in the well of the Court, Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley, Governor of New South Wales, and Mr Wilson, the Chief Justice Gageler of the High Court of Australia, Chief Justice Bell of the New South Wales Supreme Court, and Chief Judge Preston of the Land and Environment Court, together with many current and former Judges of many Courts. May I also acknowledge the presence in the Court of Professors Connolly, MacDonald, Wood and Dixon, who honour the Court with their presence this morning, along with many other distinguished guests.
Justice Stellios was actually sworn in by the Chief Justice at a private ceremony on 19 December last year, so that his Honour could be put in a harness well in advance of today. That strategy has already borne fruit. Yesterday morning, I encountered Justice Stellios on the way to deliver his first judgment. He stands, therefore, this morning in the impressive position of being able to say that none of his judgments have yet been reversed. The Chief Justice is unable to be present here today because her Honour is, in fact, presiding at the nearly simultaneous welcome ceremony being held for Justice Longbottom in Brisbane. But the Chief Justice has asked me to convey to you, Justice Stellios, her warmest congratulations on your appointment and her understandable disappointment at not yet having mastered the art of being in two places at once. The Court is both delighted with and honoured by the appointment of such a very distinguished member of the Academy to the Bench. The last Professor appointed to the Federal Court Bench was the late Paul Finn, one of the Court's and the country's most celebrated and renowned jurists. I have no doubt that you will follow in his footsteps. Can I proffer on behalf of my colleagues sitting here today and on behalf of the Court's other far-flung membership our warmest congratulations on your richly merited and outstanding appointment. I'm sure you will find your time here deeply rewarding.
Mr Begbie, representing the Attorney-General for the Commonwealth, do you move?
MR T. BEGBIE KC: Yes. May it please the Court. I begin by joining your Honour Justice Perram in acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I also extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. It's a great privilege, and indeed, a pleasure to be here today to congratulate your Honour on appointment as a Judge of this Court. The Attorney-General, the Honourable Mark Dreyfus, sends his apologies that he can't be here, but he has asked me to pass through the Government's sincere appreciation for your Honour's willingness to serve in this role. The fact that so many of your colleagues in the judiciary and the profession are here today is a testament to the high regard in which your Honour is held. May I acknowledge Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales, and her husband Mr Dennis Wilson, the Honourable Stephen Gageler AC, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Chief Justice Bell of the New South Wales Supreme Court, other current and former members of the judiciary and members of the legal profession. And may I particularly acknowledge your Honour's family. They are here today to proudly share this occasion with you. Your Honour is joined by your wife, Marita, and your daughter, Elesa, and we're also joined by your Honour's mother, Poppy, and a good cohort of a warm extended family.
Time doesn't permit for full exposition of your Honour's contributions to the law, but I can identify some key achievements that mark your distinguished career, and just as importantly, I hope some of the characteristics that will no doubt mark your time as a Judge of this Court. Your father Steve arrived in Melbourne from Greece in the 1950s with nothing but a few dollars in his pocket, hopes of a bright future and a strong work ethic. After he arrived, he met and, in due course, married your mother Poppy, and together, they ran a small business in Canberra where they worked side by side for many, many years in a small café business. In doing that, they developed a reputation for honesty, hard work, integrity and a commitment to family. These are values that they instilled in your Honour from a young age and, as will become apparent, they are very much the heart of the values that have led to your Honour's appointment to this Court. Inheriting your parents' determination and drive, your Honour excelled at school and graduated from the ANU with a Bachelor of Economics in 1991, which led you to a graduate tax consultant position. And in an early sign of your Honour's excellent judgement, you moved away from that instantly and went to complete a law degree, which you did with distinction, first class honours and the university medal in 1995.
You then commenced work as a lawyer with the Australian Government Solicitor, and if my obvious bias will be forgiven, another sign of your Honour's excellent judgement, and a step that set your Honour up well for a career in public law. You earned your Master of Laws from Cornell University in '99 and spent several years working at AGS and AGD, including as counsel assisting the then Solicitor-General, Mr David Bennett. In 2001, your Honour became a lecturer at the ANU College of Law. This marked the beginning of what has been an esteemed career in academia, with many publications, only two of which I have time to mention. The first is The Federal Judicature: Chapter III of the Constitution, the first edition of which was released in 2010, and the other is the book that you were selected by your late mentor and friend, Professor Leslie Zines, to carry on. It was his iconic text, The High Court and the Constitution. You have since authored two editions of that book, and it has been a source of extraordinary comfort and extraordinary terror to law students for many years.
You earned a doctorate in philosophy from the ANU in 2012. And then, in 2013, you were called to the New South Wales Bar. While still maintaining your stellar academic career, you built a strong reputation as a barrister in public law and appeared in dozens of important cases in the High Court and Federal Court and State Appellate Courts. If all of that were not enough, in 2022, you were appointed Head of School at the ANU College of Law, a position you maintained until your appointment to this Court. And along the way, were also elected Fellow to both the Australian Academy of Law and the Academy of the Social Sciences.
Well, that gives a brief snapshot of your Honour's formidable legal career, but it's really only half the picture. Let me say something about your Honour's personal qualities that have culminated in your appointment to this Court. Your Honour is not only a scholar, but also a gentleman. You are a patient, considered and calm man. You are a methodical and logical thinker. You approach issues with a keen eye, not just to the immediate resolution, but to the broader coherence of the system in which that question sits. You're also a man of great empathy and integrity. Like the great Greek thinkers of old, you draw readily on your natural reason, those innate senses of fairness, justice and integrity that have guided humanity through the centuries and that so powerfully inform our own system of law.
Like your parents, you're a devoted family man. Your wife and daughter are at the centre of your life, and as the many people here today will testify, your Honour is committed to and loved by a wide circle of extended family, friends, students - many adoring students, one of whom I spoke with this morning - and colleagues. Some of them will know what I'm about to reveal now. Some of them may even have, for this limited purpose, become covert sources to government. They will remain nameless, of course, unless the court is closed. Your Honour loves music. You had a legendary passion for R&B and smooth pop in your youth, singing along soulfully with Prince, the artist formerly known as, The Jacksons and Wham!. Knowing your Honour's rich baritone, I suspect this was at an octave lower than those noted pop sopranos. But nonetheless, I don't doubt that your fellow judges eagerly await an inspirational acapella rendition of Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go coming from your Honour's chambers before you go out onto the Bench.
You're also known for your love of all things sport, especially all codes of football, closely following the Roosters in the NRL, the Blues in the AFL and your beloved Manchester United in that other code. In your early years, a small cathode-ray TV, an antique device even for the standards of that time, would appear in your office during World Cup finals. It has been said that a simple question about soccer will invariably attract a dissertation exposing your Honour's fine analytical mind and, on occasion, testing beyond the natural limits the curiosity of the interlocutor. But to underline that your Honour truly is a man of the people, let me briefly say something about cars. From a young age, your Honour was big on hotted-up street and muscle cars. It was your first car, a Maroon Commodore, a complete bomb. But your Honour tricked it out with mags and a black vinyl interior to give it a bit of zhuzh. You then moved up to an XJS Jaguar with a V12 engine - that's right, a V12. I suspect climate change wasn't being discussed a lot in those days. And after that, your Honour progressed to a fancy Ford Mustang, which was so dearly loved that it was almost never allowed out of the garage.
Marita and Elesa of course shared this passion with your Honour. Shared it in the strictly technical and literal sense that they were forced to endure the breakdowns, the exorbitant costs and the embarrassment that came with your Honour's passion. I've even been informed - and this is literally exactly what I was informed - your Honour proudly drove the Ford Mustang during the Canberra Summernats car festival one January. Now, knowing your Honour as I do, and both in fairness to you and as an officer of the court, I think I'm duty-bound to say I doubt that that was literally true. I suspect that rumour had its origins in something different and more innocent, and it may be something like this: your Honour, going out for milk one January evening, a rare trip in the Ford Mustang popped into Braddon and, your mind so deeply engrossed in a difficult constitutional law question, you found yourself in the middle of one of those impromptu street parades that crop up in Braddon during the time of Summernats. And, knowing your Honour's extraordinary ability for quick thinking and defusing a difficult situation, I have absolutely no doubt that what your Honour did was to crank up the Wham! tape to full volume through the subwoofer, to wind down the window, and yell, "Go the Blues," and then drop the clutch and get out of there to an applauding crowd.
As I say, that's just a guess, and it may be that's not exactly 100 per cent the fact. But let me finish with something that is. It's one of your Honour's most abiding qualities, and that is your Honour's gentle humility. A great thinker once said that you can tell this characteristic in a person by the simple test that when you're talking to them, you will notice, if you pause to do so, that they're rather more interested in what you have to say to them and more interested in you than they are in themselves. Well, that's your Honour to a T. Despite that long list of achievements that I've gone through, your Honour would never be heard to mention any of them. Despite the fact that your Honour is more often than not the most expert person on the topic under discussion, your Honour unfailingly makes room for and encourages the views of others rather than yourself. And despite the fact that your Honour would have so much to say on so many things, your Honour instead chooses the role of listener, which you do carefully and attentively. And those are qualities which I think it's fair to say in this age are in dangerously short supply. They're qualities that will serve your Honour powerfully and therefore the community powerfully through your time on this Court.
So your Honour takes this judicial office with the best wishes of the Australian legal profession. I am confident you will approach this role with the same integrity and dedication as you have approached your whole career to date. And on behalf of the Australian Government and the Australian people, I extend to you my sincere congratulations and welcome you to the Federal Court of Australia. May it please the Court.
PERRAM J: Thank you, Mr Begbie. Dr Ruth Higgins, President of the New South Wales Bar Association, and this morning also representing the Australian Bar Association, do you move?
DR R. HIGGINS SC: May it please the court. I too acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, I give my respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations persons present today. Justice Perram, it is an honour to speak today on behalf of the New South Wales and Australian Bar associations. Justice Stellios, warmest congratulations on your appointment to this court. Your Honour's appointment continues an established, albeit exceptional, practice of the appointment to this court of individuals who are principally distinguished academics. "Principally" has important work to do, given your Honour's practice at the Bar. I will come back to that. Your Honour's academic trajectory has, as we have heard, been a linear one. Judge Richard A. Posner, an American exemplar of the academic judicial pivot, wrote in his book how judges think of the differences that part the judicial and academic paths, and I quote:
A judge is a generalist who writes an opinion under pressure of time in whatever case, in whatever field of law is assigned to him. Lack of time and lack of specialisation are not problems for the law professor. He writes an article on a topic of his choice, in the area of his speciality, at a pace that he is comfortable with. He strives to make an original contribution. In contrast, lack of originality is no problem for the judge. Originality is far less valued and valuable in judicial opinions than academic books and articles.
Judge Posner went on to describe the different audiences of judge and academic, observing, and I again quote, that:
The primary audience of academic writing consists of other academics, while the judge writes in the first instance for his fellow judges with at least a glance over his shoulder at the Supreme Court.
That last observation reveals a sense in which your Honour has long differed from the focal case of the academic. Your Honour's works are numerous, but salient among them, as we have heard, is the authoritative constitutional text, Zines and Stellios's The High Court and the Constitution. That text, first published in 1981, and for which your Honour assumed responsibility in 2015, struck a break within Australian constitutional scholarship. Professor Leslie Zines AO, by whom your Honour was taught at the ANU, followed in the methods and modes of the likes of Roscoe Pound and in a quintessentially American way, which involved being in almost direct conversation with the High Court, its judges, their methods and their decisions. Professor Zines conceived of the judiciary as in part both the subject and the audience of legal academic endeavour. Your Honour has, in the seventh edition of that text, continued that conversation across the disciplines. As the abstract to your Honour's collection of essays in honour of Professor Michael Coper observes, what constitutional interpretation and legal education have in common is, and I quote:
...they share the same tension between theory and practice, between form and substance, between process and outcomes, between constancy and change and between local and comparative perspectives. Each also has a substratum of fundamental underlying values that demand, but do not always receive, clear articulation.
The precise point of convergence between academic and judicial analysis was identified by your Honour’s most direct predecessor, the Honourable Justice Paul Finn, an eminent former judge of this court and Professor of Law at the ANU. In an interview given as part of Cambridge University's Goodhart Eminent Scholars Archive, Justice Finn said this:
I've always regarded law as an applied discipline. I do not regard myself as a theorist, and I've always written with an eye, not to practice in the narrow sense of being in a courtroom, but written with a sense of the practical things in life. And being a judge has accentuated that. Law as an applied discipline brings with it a particular cast of mind. All legal reasoning, no matter how theoretical, is an incremental step in practical reasoning as opposed to a conclusion of theoretical reasoning, because law necessarily manifests as action. That is especially so in respect of constitutional law, where the philosophical foundations of sovereignty crystallise as practical action. The constitutional sphere is also a site where law must be at its most ecumenical, gathering in notions like coherence, consistency, principle, policy and purpose.
Your Honour's many works exemplify this, whether they concern the federal judicature in Chapter III of the Constitution, or judicial federalism, they have in view at all times history, theory, doctrine and practice because these are the stuff of which all good legal analysis is made. That appreciation for the large practical landscape of law has been reflected also in your Honour's practice at the Bar. Your Honour's appearances in the High Court have extended over decades and across different capacities. Your Honour's first appearance in the High Court was in 1998 in Re JJT; Ex Parte Victoria Legal Aid (1998) 195 CLR 184, and continued until your Honour's appointment, including notably in NZYQ v Minister for Immigration (2023) 97 ALJR 1005. Many of those cases share the characteristic that their resolution had immediate and lasting practical effects on the lives of individuals within Australia. Vunilagi v The Queen (2023) 97 ALJR 627, concerned judicial power and the institutional integrity of territory courts. Jacka v Australian Capital Territory (2014) 180 ACTR 207 concerned with the provisions of the Crime Sentence Administration Act 2005 (ACT), which conferred powers on the Sentence Administration Board to cancel periodic detention, were invalid, as contrary to Chapter III of the Constitution.
Your Honour has for many decades carefully interwoven theory and practice, and can continue to do that in the important work of this Court. Your Honour has displayed other traits well-fitted to judicial office. One of your Honour's colleagues at the ANU spoke of you as a brilliant scholar who nonetheless has the capacity to deal with the mundane matters of academe, such as approving timesheets, arranging tutors, reminding lecturers of timetabling deadlines, ordering textbooks and various other administrative tasks. Irrespective of the task, your Honour meets it with patience, politeness and humility. So too your Honour carefully appreciates and extends intellectual debts and legacies, having organised several symposia at the ANU since 2019 alongside Justice Griffiths to honour the work of your mentor Professor Zines while applying the Finn rules as to how a symposium should optimally run.
Your Honour, in 2018, you co-edited a fine collection, The Federal Court's Contribution to Australian Law: Past, Present and Future. The Members of the New South Wales and Australian Bar await your Honour's contribution to that contribution with happy anticipation and complete confidence. May it please the Court.
PERRAM J: Thank you, Dr Higgins. Ms Warner, the President of the Law Council of Australia and this morning representing the Law Society of New South Wales. Do you move?
MS J. WARNER: May it please the court. I echo the acknowledgments made of the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. And I also acknowledge Justice Perram presiding, Mr Tim Begbie KC, Chief Counsel, Dispute Resolution, AGS, representing the Attorney-General, Dr Ruth Higgins, President of the New South Wales Bar Association, all judicial officers, dignitaries, family, friends, and most of all, your Honour. I'm very pleased to be with you today to welcome your Honour's appointment on behalf of the Law Council of Australia and the Law Society of New South Wales. Now, just over a decade ago, Canberra marked its centenary. And I understand that certificates were sent out to recognise those residents who had lived in the city for 50 years or more. I thought it seemed a little surprising to set up and celebrate a generational attachment to a town of just 50 years, but then, I was told that many people living in Canberra did not grow up there. Rather, they came later in life for work or to study or for some other reason. Not so your Honour. You're Canberra bred and born. But just as you should never ask anyone their age, it would be impertinent of me to ask if you received such a certificate.
In any event, I understand you were born and bred in our nation's beautiful bush capital. Your Honour along with your brother were raised by hard-working and entrepreneurial parents. Your father, Steve, came to Australia from Kythera in Greece. He was part of the Kytherian diaspora and here met your delightful Australian-born Greek mother, Poppy, to whom I introduced myself this morning. She is watching in court today very proudly and rightly so. I was very interested to hear of your Kythera connection, but more of that later.
Your Honour did all of your schooling in the ACT. You even met your future wife while in high school at - and I have no idea how to pronounce this - Daramalan College or Darra as it is known to locals, which is probably a good thing. And the Australian National University in the ACT is your Honour's alma mater. You graduated from ANU with both a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Laws and Honours, and not one to rest on your laurels, your Honour supplemented this already impressive academic achievement with a Doctor of Philosophy in Law. And I'm not surprised about that, because in my experience, descendants of Kytherians work hard and they are smart. I believe that while your Honour started out studying economics, within at least your first year at university, you realised that your interest and passion for the law was much greater, and we are all very grateful for that.
Your Honour's career path saw you return to the ANU as a professor. Your Honour has shared your deep knowledge and love of the law with students – who hopefully went on to join us in our profession – as the Professor and Head of School at ANU Law School. I can only imagine that you were inspired by the lecturers and tutors who engaged with you as a student, so you were motivated to return to the halls of academia and educate others. And I have it on good authority that you were an outstanding professor. I've even heard tell that many of your students would nominate your Honour as the best teacher they encountered during their studies, which is very high praise indeed.
The attributes that earn this praise will also serve those who come before you really well. Your Honour is patient, kind and an excellent communicator. You have an ability to explain complex matters simply, clearly and effectively. You're respectful to all, approachable and build strong relationships with those you work with. Your Honour comes to the bench as a nationally recognised and respected expert in constitutional law. As we've heard, you authored a number of defining texts, most notably in the context of today The Federal Judicature: Chapter III of the Constitution. Not necessarily a light bedtime reading, but a very important text for us as lawyers.
As one of Australia's foremost experts in constitutional law, your Honour's work has been widely cited by Australian courts, including in High Court judgments, and by the New Zealand Supreme Court. Your Honour's insight into the common law as it applies in Australia is also greatly admired by your peers. An article published by the ANU in response to your Honour's elevation said:
The Chief Justice of Australia once described the move from academia to the bench as a giant leap. In Justice Stellios' case, however, his transition to judicial office will be facilitated by the fact that he developed a successful practice at the Bar alongside his full-time academic achievements.
As I said, hard-working and smart. Your Honour has appeared in a number of challenging and significant cases and cases that did have the potential to change laws or the administration of laws in this country and influence policy. And Dr Higgins has already referred to the high-profile NZYQ v Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, which seems to be in the newspapers on a daily basis. Your Honour's achievements have garnered a number of awards and distinctions, including being named as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Individuals elected as
Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia exemplify the exceptional calibre of research and scholarship within the social sciences. Their work is not only academically significant, but also holds immense practical relevance for shaping policies, improving communities and advancing our understanding of complex social challenges.
Outside of the law, we have learned this morning that your Honour has a passion for terrible cars. Your Honour is also an avid sports fan, and whilst I understand that there really isn't any sport that you don't like, your supporter's heart belongs to something in the AFL. Is that the Blues? And the Sydney Roosters in the NRL, whoever they are. And your Honour is a serious soccer fanatic, although I understand you prefer to refer to the sport by its proper name, football. For a good game of football, particularly a Manchester United match, your Honour will not begrudge a late night or an early morning and the missed hours of sleep so that you can cheer on from the sidelines. But your Honour's greatest love is, of course, your family and friends, who I know are the very grateful recipients of your culinary skills and amazing Greek-inspired dishes. And that brings me back to Kythera. My best friend from the time that we were very little was and is part of a wonderful extended Kytherian family. And I spent much of my childhood and youth hanging out with them in the backyard under the vine leaves and sitting around the kitchen table learning to stuff them and watching and learning from her mum how to cook the most wonderful Greek food. Egg and lemon soup, fish soup, moussaka, spanakopita, etcetera etcetera. To an Aussie kid raised to that point on chop and three veg, overcooked, that was a revelation. Although, in fairness to Mum, things improved markedly when she did the Margaret Fulton Bistro course.
I expect that your Honour was part of such an equally wonderful family, and absorbed from the beginning the centrality of the comfort and support of your family and extended family. And I see many of them are here today. I expect you also learnt to be a fabulous cook from your mum, and learnt the importance of food, family and hospitality in Greek culture. In my humble opinion, Greek cuisine and hospitality is the best in the world. I would like to close on a more serious note with another quote from the article I referenced earlier, this one attributed to your Honour's colleague Professor Leighton McDonald:
In relation to all aspects of his academic life, Professor Stellios has acted with integrity, impartiality and humanity. In addition to his prodigious legal knowledge and mastery of legal method, these qualities will ensure he will acquit his responsibilities as a Chapter III Judge with distinction.
Your Honour you, sir, are a very great man. And on behalf of the legal profession, congratulations. The people of Australia will be privileged to be served by you. May it please the Court.
PERRAM J: Thank you, Ms Warner. Justice Stellios.
STELLIOS J: Thank you, Justice Perram, for that very kind introduction earlier. Fellow members of the Federal Court, Your Excellency, Governor Beazley and Mr Wilson, Chief Justices, current and former Members of this and other Courts, members of the profession, family and friends, thank you all for being here today. The Court and I are honoured by your presence. It is a privilege to be here on the traditional land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. I extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are present here today for this occasion. I am honoured by the speeches of Mr Begbie KC, Dr Higgins SC and Ms Warner, and I am moved and humbled by their kind words.
I suspect the occasion brings out exaggerations and embellishment, but I'm flattered and grateful nonetheless. I'm particularly delighted to hear from my old friend Tim Begbie, whose friendship I'm lucky to still have. And I think I should correct the record. It is true that I was caught in the middle of the Supercruise. It is also true I was accidentally caught in the middle of the Supercruise on the way home from the supermarket. But the truth is, I was not in my Mustang. I was in my VW Jetta, much to the horror of onlookers. I should also say in response to Ms Warner that I did not receive a certificate, but, given the condition you outlined, I now wouldhave.
I have been overwhelmed by the warm wishes I have received from family, friends, members of the judiciary and former colleagues and students, and I'm grateful that they have taken the time to contact me. I'm also indebted to family and friends who are here today, many of whom have travelled at a busy time of year and at great inconvenience. I'm deeply honoured and delighted to be joining this Court, and I'm mindful of the constitutional responsibility that has been entrusted to me. I have arrived at an institution that has offered wonderful support and assistance, and I thank in particular Chief Justice Mortimer, Justice Katzmann, and the Chief Executive Officer and Principal Registrar, Ms Sia Lagos. I could not have imagined a better introduction to the Court. I extend my heartfelt thanks to my new colleagues who have given me a warm reception and endless offers of assistance and support. I hope I do not need to call on those kind offers for too long. I'm greatly indebted to my two acting associates, Ms Nasim Nejadi and Ms Annie Willox, who have done a terrific job helping me to navigate the first couple of months. I look forward to working with my new associate Mr Sebastian Mazay, who started in my chambers a few days ago.
I would like to say a few words about how I find myself here today. As you've heard, in 1951, my late father Steve left the small island of Kythera in Greece, setting sail for Melbourne. After a couple of years in Queanbeyan, where we were told he sold cigarettes to George Lazenby, and first encountered and was confused by the game of Rugby League, he eventually moved to the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people in Canberra. He married my mother Poppy Saucis, the daughter of Kytherian migrants who had found their way to the lands of the Wiradjuri people in Dubbo in Western New South Wales. My father, growing up in difficult circumstances in post-war Greece, did not have the opportunity to finish high school. My mother was taken out of high school to help in the family business when my grandmother became ill. Like many migrants to this country who did not have educational opportunities, my parents placed a high value on education and worked hard to provide me with the opportunities that were not open to them. If my dad were here today, he would be beaming with pride, just like my mum has been since my appointment. I also want to remember my late parents-in-law, Tony and Rosaria Rendina, whose migrant experience from across the Mediterranean was very similar to that of my father and grandparents. I suspect they, too, would have been as proud as my mum is.
I have been incredibly fortunate over the last 30 years of my professional life. After graduating from the ANU Law School, I first entered the legal profession as a cadet with the Attorney General's Department within the Australian Government Solicitor. I found myself surrounded by talented lawyers with a commitment to serving the public good. I saw firsthand the important role that government lawyers can play in shaping public policy and providing a check on public power. The tail end of my time in government was spent as Counsel Assisting the Solicitor General David Bennett KC, whom I am delighted to see here today. I gained lifelong lessons from his advocacy, his penetrating mind and his calm demeanour. When I first started with David, he asked me how I took my coffee. From my first morning on the job until my last, David delivered to my desk a freshly brewed cup. I suspect to his disappointment upon leaving the Counsel Assisting role, I decided to become an academic rather than going to the Bar. My wife gave me two years. I ended up staying for almost a quarter of a century.
It has been a deeply rewarding period of my life, teaching the next generation of lawyers and contributing to legal scholarship. I spent my entire academic career at the ANU Law School, an institution that will always be dear to me. I would like to remember the late Professor Michael Coper, a generous and kind soul who took a chance on a keen but very green aspiring academic, the late Professor Phillipa Weeks, my first head of school and an exceptional human being, and the late Professor Leslie Zines, whose generosity was endless, as I endeavoured to become an accomplished scholar. I also acknowledge Professor Tony Connolly, the current Dean, for his support during my time as Head of School and for waiving the usual notice period upon my resignation.
I leave the university sector with the knowledge that the academic enterprise is central to a healthy and robust democracy and legal system, and to a just society that is characterised by the rule of law. The academy needs to be valued and supported. I welcome and encourage the scrutiny of my judgments, in the same way I have scrutinised the judgments of others. The academy has given me more than I deserve, not the least lifelong friends. I would like to acknowledge the long-standing collegiality and friendship of ANU Professors Leighton McDonald and Asmi Wood and Professor Robert Burrell now at Oxford. I have been, and hope to continue to be, part of a vibrant and supportive constitutional law community in Australia. I have worked with many brilliant scholars and have benefited greatly from engagement with them. I would like to acknowledge in particular my close colleagues Professor Rosalind Dixon from UNSW and Professor Adrienne Stone from the University of Melbourne.
For the last 11 years, I've had the privilege of combining an academic career with a practice at the Bar, and I'm immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from outstanding senior counsel and work with talented junior counsel and instructing solicitors, some of whom are here today. My time at the New South Wales Bar was only possible because of the generosity of my tutors, Dr Christos Mantziaris and Dr Chris Ward SC, and the willingness of 6 St James Hall Chambers to embrace me as an associate member.
Each phase of my professional life has been richly fulfilling and brought me in contact with incredible colleagues and mentors who offered me advice and support in carving out a professional path in life. I have mentioned a few already. I would be here beyond the morning tea reception if I were to mention them all. However, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge Sir Anthony Mason, the Honourable Michael Kirby, the Honourable William Gummow, Professor Peter Cane, Professor David Hambly and Justice Matthew Howard, who has flown from Perth to be here today. I would also like to offer special thanks for the encouragement and guidance over the last decade of former Federal Court Judge and now Acting Justice of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, John Griffiths. I'm delighted that he's present today to share the occasion with me.
Finally, I want to thank the two women who have made me the person I am today. To my brilliant and talented daughter, Elesa, who has filled my life with pride and joy since the moment I saw her 22 years ago. And to my incomparable and extraordinary wife, Marita, whose love I have had the very good fortune to enjoy for over 35 years. I thank you for the sacrifices you have made and for the sacrifices I now ask of you. I would not be here without your support and generous spirit. The early indications at home are that my new status counts for very little and that my dynamic duo will keep me well grounded.
As for the task ahead, during a dinner speech at a conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the Federal Court, the late Sir Gerard Brennan outlined the qualities which he admired in his Federal Court colleagues. The qualities were integrity, competence, erudition and humour. My daughter has told me that I will never be the personality hire, so I can't promise to bring much humour. However, I will certainly strive to live up to the other standards much admired by Sir Gerard. Beyond that, I can only repeat the oath that I took upon my swearing in to do right to all manner of people according to law without fear or favour, affection or ill will. Thank you.
PERRAM J: Thank you, Justice Stellios. The court will now adjourn.
____________________
