Ceremonial Sitting of the Full Court
to Welcome the Honourable Justice Vandongen
Transcript of proceedings
The Honourable Debra Mortimer, Chief Justice
The Honourable Justice Nye Perram
The Honourable Justice Natalie Charlesworth
The Honourable Justice Katrina Banks-Smith
The Honourable Justice Craig Colvin
The Honourable Justice Darren Jackson
The Honourable Justice Michael Feutrill
The Honourable Justice Samuel Vandongen
PERTH
4.15 PM, FRIDAY, 7 MARCH 2025
MORTIMER CJ: A warm welcome to you all. We’re on the country of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar boodja. Their ancestors and their Elders looked after this country for generation after generation prior to colonisation – and I acknowledge the continuing connection of First Peoples across this country to their cultures, their laws and traditions.
It’s a delight to see so many people here today – testament to the wide endorsement of Justice Vandongen’s appointment. We’re honoured to be joined by the Honourable Robert French AC, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia; the Attorney-General for Western Australia; the Chief Justice of Western Australia; Judges and former Judges of the Supreme Court of Western Australia and the Court of Appeal; and former Justices of this Court. We welcome also colleagues from the Federal Circuit and Family Court and a range of State Courts, State and Federal Tribunals. We welcome also many members of Counsel and Solicitors.
Our Court has conducted a number of welcome ceremonies over the last few weeks – and, as of today’s announcement by the Attorney-General, we have one more to go. This has been a considerable source of pride for our Court. However, this particular welcome has additional significance. Justice Vandongen becomes the fifth Judge in the Western Australian Registry. The last time there was an increase in the number of Judges in the Western Australian Registry was in 1995, with the appointment of the Honourable Robert Nicholson AO.
In this ceremony, we recognise the distinguished career of Justice Vandongen and celebrate his appointment. By a public ceremony like this, members of the profession and the community are able to reflect on the qualities of the new appointee. Such a milestone is not reached without the support and encouragement of family, friends and colleagues. I am pleased, therefore, in particular to welcome Justice Vandongen’s family and friends on this special occasion.
Justice Vandongen, you took the affirmation of office on 17 December here in this building in front of family and friends and your new judicial colleagues. The affirmation includes a promise to do right to all manner of people according to law without fear or favour, affection or ill will. That is a promise about independence, fairness, courage and impartiality. Those are the values I am confident you will uphold in your service to the Australian community as a Judge of the Federal Court.
On behalf of the Judges, Registrars and staff of the Court, I congratulate you on your appointment. Ms Griffin, Australian Government solicitor representing the Attorney-General for the Commonwealth, I invite you to speak on behalf of the Attorney-General.
MS B. GRIFFIN: May it please the Court. I would like to begin by 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 is a great privilege to be here to congratulate your Honour on your appointment as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. The Attorney-General, the Honourable Mark Dreyfus KC, regrets that he cannot be here on this occasion with you today. He has, however, asked that I convey the Government’s sincere appreciation for your Honour’s willingness to serve as a Judge of this Court and the Government extends its best wishes for your career on the Bench.
Your Honour’s appointment to this Court is another success in a diverse and eminent career. That so many of your colleagues in the judiciary and the legal profession are here today is a testament to the high regard in which your colleagues hold your Honour.
May I particularly acknowledge the Honourable Peter Quinlan, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia; the Honourable Steven Heath, Chief Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Western Australia; the Honourable Julie Wager, Chief Judge of the District Court of Western Australia; the Honourable John Quigley, Western Australia Attorney-General and Minister for Electoral Affairs; the Honourable Elizabeth Woods, Deputy Chief Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Western Australia; the Honourable John McKechnie AO KC, Commissioner of the Western Australia Corruption and Crime Commission; other current and former members of the judiciary; fellow speakers; and members of the legal profession.
May I also acknowledge the presence of your Honour’s family, who proudly share this occasion with you today – in particular, your wife Merrilee, who is here today with your children, William, James and Charlotte. We are also joined by your mother, Yvonne; your mother-in-law, Leonie; your sister Gemma, brother-in-law Chris as well as your sister-in-law Fiona; and many other proud friends.
Time does not permit full exposition of your Honour’s achievements and the contributions you have made to the law. Therefore, today I will focus on some key achievements that mark your distinguished career.
As to your formative years and early education: your Honour was born in Adelaide. Before settling down to live in Perth, I understand your family spent periods living in England, Brisbane, and the Netherlands. I am told that your Honour has very fond memories of your time as a child in the Netherlands, including ice skating on frozen canals.
In Western Australia, your Honour went to Nedlands Primary School and then to Christ Church Grammar School. I am told that one of your Honour’s greatest achievements during your early education was to be the stroke of the school’s first eight, which won the Head of the River in Year 12. The diligence, discipline, pacing and focus required to be a successful rower are all personal qualities that are evident in the way that you are described by those who know you.
As to your legal studies and career: in 1991, your Honour graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Western Australia. Following this, in 1992, your Honour was admitted and secured a position with Richard Huston & Associates, a small suburban firm. I hear that Richard Huston was an important mentor and remains a friend to you to this day.
Your Honour practised as a Crown Prosecutor at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Western Australia between 1996 and 2004. Your Honour then moved interstate to continue as a Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales between 2004 and 2006. After returning to Western Australia in 2006, your Honour served as a consultant State Prosecutor for two years until 2008.
While in this role, I understand that your Honour required surgery after being stabbed by a palm frond while gardening, and received much ribbing when the then-Director of Public Prosecutions notified the office that you had cancelled all Court commitments that week because you had a splinter in your finger.
Your Honour then joined the independent bar in 2008 and was quickly appointed to Senior Counsel in 2010. I’m told that you were the pre-eminent criminal law silk in Western Australia, with an unmatched reputation for honesty and integrity. Your Honour appeared in many high-profile cases in Western Australia, and successfully argued complex matters in the High Court.
Your Honour was appointed as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 2022. Soon after, in 2023, your Honour was appointed to be a Justice of the Court of Appeal – a recognition of the high regard in which you were held as a Supreme Court Judge.
As to your personal qualities: it is a great pleasure to recognise a few of your Honour’s personal qualities that have culminated in your appointment to this Court. Your close colleagues admire how you carry yourself. Your Honour has been described as acting like a duck on water during practice: calm and composed above, but feverishly processing and planning the course as the evidence evolves. I understand that regardless of the result, no client ever complained of your Honour’s representation of them – and almost universally praised your performance.
Your Honour has been described as whip-smart and a top-shelf orator who writes with sublime clarity and cogency. It has also been said that you have an unerring line of sight of the issues that matter in cases and have some real ticker about you beneath your calm and unflappable exterior. However, I am also told that your Honour is also very understated about your own abilities and achievements, often raising others’ achievements above your own.
Despite being exceptionally busy as a barrister, I understand that your Honour’s dedication to making a positive contribution to and through the law led you to devote a significant amount of time to pro bono work. In recognition of this, your Honour was awarded the Attorney-General’s Community Service Award in 2017.
I am also reliably informed that your Honour has been lucky to have several mentors who have helped shape your career in the legal profession including John McKechnie AO KC, the late Bob Richardson, Kevin Tavener, the Honourable Justice Craig Colvin and Chris Zelestis KC. In turn, I’m told that your Honour is a brilliant mentor who will always make yourself available to others, often at the expense of your own time. At one Judge’s welcome ceremony, it was joked that being mentored by your Honour seemed to be an essential criterion for being appointed to the Western Australian Bench. While your Honour has much to be proud of as a lawyer and jurist, it is clear to those who know you that you consider your family your greatest achievement and highest priority.
I’m told that your Honour always looks forward to spending quality time with your family on holidays abroad or local holidays in the camper trailer. As to your other interests and hobbies, I hear your Honour also enjoys surfing, is a keen cyclist and an avid tennis player. I’m told that your Honour is a genuinely decent person, humble, well-grounded, funny, and with an intuitive understanding of, and empathy for, the frailties of the human condition. Your Honour is known for your passionate support for your beloved West Coast Eagles. AFL is an emotional game, and I’m informed that your manner on game day may differ significantly from the rational, impartial, and composed way you carry yourself professionally. Nevertheless, I have it on good authority that your Honour is unreservedly the full package when it comes to your role as a Judge, and the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s loss will be the Federal Court’s inestimable gain. Your Honour’s appointment to this Court acknowledges your dedication to the law and accomplishments in the legal profession. Your Honour takes on this judicial office with the best wishes of the Australian legal profession, and it is trusted that you will approach this role with exceptional dedication to the law as you have shown throughout your career. 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.
MORTIMER CJ: Thank you, Ms Griffin. Ms Taylor, president of the Western Australian Bar Association and representing the Australian Bar Association.
MS J. TAYLOR SC: May it please the Court. It’s a privilege today to speak on behalf of the WA Bar Association and the Australian Bar Association at this special sitting at the Federal Court of Australia to welcome your Honour. Today the Court convenes on the land of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, on the banks of the beautiful Derbarl Yerrigan. On behalf of the WA Bar Association and the ABA, I pay my respects to their elders past and present. Your Honour has had a long and illustrious career at the bar, and is also a well experienced Judge, having served as a Judge on the Supreme Court of WA since November 2022, and a Judge of the Court of Appeal for the State since May 2023. It’s a testament to your Honour’s skill as a Judge that your Honour was so quickly elevated to the Court of Appeal, where your Honour has served with distinction. I’ve heard that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was very sorry, to say the least, to hear of your Honour’s departure to this Court. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s loss, I’ve heard that your Honour has thrown yourself into this new appointment with considerable enthusiasm. Indeed, your Honour was recently heard to say to a junior counsel in this State that practice at the bar is almost the best job, but this job is better. It seems that your Honour has had something of a spring in your steps since taking this appointment.
Your Honour has a strong reputation not only for a sharp intelligence and technical excellence, but also for a voracious work ethic. Many people within your Honour’s former chambers at Francis Burt remember that your only real failing at the bar was a near-complete inability to say no to work. A quick Lexis search of your Honour judgments reveals that your Honour has delivered some 87 judgments during your time as a Judge of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in this State. That doesn’t include the decision which your Honour handed down only yesterday, while having already taken up work within this Court. That is a considerable contribution to the administration of justice in this State and highlights your Honour's dedication and commitment to public service through judicial office. Your Honour had a broad practice at the bar and was a rare breed of practitioner who could rightly claim to be a true generalist. However, it must be recognised that, through your Honour’s work in the criminal law sphere in particular, your Honour dedicated considerable efforts to helping some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Your Honour continued to undertake a significant volume of work relating to criminal law while in the Supreme Court of WA. Your Honour has undertaken that work with characteristic patience, grace and skill. This Court also deals with matters involving members of the broader community who are vulnerable and who, of course, require patience and respect. Your Honour’s experience in criminal law will equip you well to deal with all of those people.
Your Honour has already become a popular Judge through your time in the Supreme Court. As an advocate, it was a pleasure to appear before your Honour in the Court of Appeal. Your Honour’s careful and thoughtful approach to every case had a calming effect for counsel and, dare I also say, the other members of the Court. It has been said that your Honour was, in fact, more intimidating at the Bar than your Honour was, or has been, on the Bench. In particular, people have noticed that your Honour appears to be mindful of how an appearance may affect the confidence of counsel appearing before your Court, and particularly when there are junior practitioners speaking in Court. Your Honour has been committed to assisting with the development of skills of junior barristers at the bar. Many who have appeared before you feel they have learned something from that experience, either about their arguments or about their advocacy. Your Honour also gave an excellent seminar to members of Francis Burt Chambers on appellate advocacy recently, from which many of us benefited. I’ve also heard that your Honour’s associates love working for you, and that your Honour takes a lot of time to ensure that their experience is broad and fulfilling, including by encouraging them to undertake advocacy training within the Supreme Court’s program.
When at Francis Burt, your Honour was often a cell leader, which of course is a term that Chambers used not to describe locking its pupils up, but to guide them through their experience in their first year at the bar. Your Honour’s juniors describe you as having been relaxed and collaborative, and universally say that they learned from the way that your Honour would enhance their work product that they produced for your review. Your Honour encouraged juniors to work things out for themselves, while still being a gentle teacher and leader who always had an unlimited generosity with your time. Your Honour used to give your juniors speaking roles whenever possible, I’m told whether they wanted it or not, it was always a good learning experience. One tells me about being given a cross-examination role and learning subtly through your Honour’s gentle tug on their robes when you felt that the cross-examination had been taken far enough. Your Honour was very popular within chambers, and there are many who still keenly feel the loss of your Honour to the Bench. Your Honour’s friends and colleagues attest to your Honour’s loyalty, compassion, deep friendship, and legal acumen. They say that you are a person of the utmost integrity and will strive to do the right thing, even at your own personal cost.
One of your Honour’s juniors and friends speaks fondly of an occasion when, after a significant pro bono criminal trial which rectified a real injustice, your Honour gave everyone in the team a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Your Honour will recall the famous passage from Atticus’ great closing argument, which goes like this:
We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe. Some people are smarter than others. Some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it. Some men make more money than others. Some ladies make better cakes than others. Some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men. But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal. There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a Court.
By fearlessly administering the rule of law within the Commonwealth, this Court protects and advances the equality of all Australian citizens and ensures fairness and justice for all people within its jurisdiction. At a time when the world order feels disrupted, we are particularly thankful for the service that all of the Judges of the Federal Court provide by maintaining a national Court system with a constitutionally entrenched independence and separation of powers. Without your Honour’s service this would not be possible. The Australian community, including the members of the WA Bar Association and the ABA, are grateful for the service that your Honour has agreed to provide by taking up this new appointment. The members of the WA Bar and the ABA more broadly look forward to working with you in this Court. May it please the Court.
MORTIMER CJ: Thank you, Ms Taylor. Mr Mack, President of the Law Society of Western Australia and representing the Law Council of Australia.
MR G. MACK: May it please the Court. It’s my privilege to appear today representing the Law Society of Western Australia and the Law Council of Australia in warmly welcoming the Honourable Justice Samuel Vandongen to the Bench of this Honourable Court. I also join in acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, and on behalf of the Law Council of Australia and the Law Society of Western Australia, and I pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging. I also acknowledge the suffering First Nation peoples have endured since colonisation. As you’ve heard today from my esteemed colleagues, your Honour is highly regarded and well respected in the legal profession, and you’ve had an outstanding career since your admission in 1992. Your Honour’s contribution as a Prosecutor and then as a barrister and Senior Counsel has been one of commitment, humanity and great skill. Your Honour’s aptitude for the law and the role of Judge is perhaps best demonstrated by the trajectory of your career these past three years. Your seat on the Bench of the Supreme Court which you took up in 2022 was barely warm when you were appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2023, and today celebrating another ascension, this time to the Bench of the Federal Court of Australia.
Aside from your Honour’s impressive career, your Honour has served the legal profession and the community in other important ways. Your Honour sat on the Law Society’s Criminal Law Committee for four years and was a valued contributor to CPD seminars, including the Practical Advocacy weekend and Essentials of Advocacy and Negotiating programs for Young Lawyers. The Law Society is very grateful for that contribution. In 2017, your Honour received, as has been mentioned, the Attorney-General’s Community Service Award in recognition of your pro bono work in the community, particularly as acting as lead counsel for a man wrongly convicted of manslaughter. Your Honour’s leadership, work ethic, and service to the community continues to be an example to others and is also the reason why we are here today. Inevitably, however, your Honour’s move to the Federal Court has left a gap in the Bench of the Court of Appeal. A former Court of Appeal colleague described your Honour as one of Australia’s best criminal advocates, adding that it had been a pleasure to work with your Honour. Your colleague lamented, however, that they wished it had lasted longer. A sentiment I suspect is shared by your colleagues at the Supreme Court.
It is also said that your Honour has a prodigious work ethic, a deep understanding of criminal law and the ability to write with clarity and economy. Your Honour’s counsel was often described as being a source of constant advice and wisdom to anyone who sought it and was always willing to provide junior counsel with advice on any matter, large or small, and in doing so, with immense grace. I understand that some of that measured advice was to junior counsel whom you advised to always remember to be fair and treat everyone with dignity in the courtroom, including the accused, and that one should be fierce and cross-examine vigorously, but not lose humanity. The recruitment and appointment of highly skilled, knowledgeable, dedicated, competent and humane judicial officers, as your Honour’s appointment has been to the Bench of this Court, has never been more important than it is now. The rule of law, together with the doctrine of separation of powers, which has been the bedrock of our way of life and the democracy we all know and enjoy. These doctrines, widely known and accepted by the community, can no longer be taken for granted because the principles that underpin these doctrines have been openly challenged.
I have no doubt your Honour will bring to this new role the humanity and vigour of which I have earlier alluded to. On behalf of the Legal Profession of Western Australia and the Law Council of Australia, we warmly congratulate your Honour on your appointment, and we wish you all the best in this new role. May it please the Court.
MORTIMER CJ: Thank you, Mr Mack. Justice Vandongen, I invite you to respond.
VANDONGEN J: Thank you, Chief Justice. Late last year my very good friend, Justice Stephen Lemonis, said at his own welcoming to the Supreme Court that it is an awkward experience to have these two ceremonies. I rarely agree with his Honour, however, even I must admit that he was right. I was reluctant to have another one of these ceremonies. After my other welcoming in the Supreme Court, I had to put my ego on a diet. Someone, who I suspect was acting in their own self-interest, recently told me that when it came my turn to speak today, I should simply say that the relevant propositions are well settled, they were comprehensively summarised at my welcoming to the Supreme Court in November 2022, and that I adopt everything that I’ve already said on the topic without repeating them. I ran that idea past my new colleagues. I was in the minority. So you will need to make yourselves comfortable.
I, too, would like to begin by joining with the other speakers who have acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land on which this Court sits, the Whadjuk people, whose language group forms part of the Noongar people. These acknowledgements should never be allowed to be regarded as mere platitudes. The Noongar people speak their own languages and have their own laws and customs, characterised by a strong spiritual connection to this land that has been forged over at least 45,000 years. I acknowledge the continuing culture and the contribution made by the Noongar people to the life of this city and to the south-west region of this State. In that context, I am very grateful for the presence of my friend of many years, Mr Peter Collins, the Principal Legal Officer of the Aboriginal Legal Service. Ms Griffin and Mr Mack, I thank you both for your very kind words. Having personally experienced what it is like to have to come up with the goods when appearing as counsel at one of these occasions, I know that the finished product that you have both delivered today was just the tip of the preparation iceberg. Ms Taylor, I especially thank you for what you have said today on behalf of the bar that under your leadership, has played a significant role in securing the proper administration of justice in this State.
At a time when 'my truth' risks overwhelming the truth, it is vital that organisations such as the Bar Association and the Law Society enhance the community’s understanding of the important role the courts play in peacefully and independently quelling disputes based on evidence, logic and reasoning. In 2007, I appeared before the Full Court of the High Court of Australia for the first time. Before the hearing, I was nervously pacing the corridors on the sixth floor that is reserved for counsel, looking at the photographs of the people I had only read about in law school. Overcome by imposter syndrome, I almost cut and ran for a taxi to take me to the relative safety of the airport. Had I been told then that I would one day serve as a Judge of the Supreme Court and then as a Judge of this Court, I would have told them that there was more chance that something other than dust would ever appear in the Fremantle Dockers trophy cabinet. I would like to thank everyone who has taken time out of their busy lives to be present at this ceremony, particularly those of you who embarked on what Eric Heenan SC, yesterday complained to me was quite a long walk down St George's Terrace.
I would particularly like to thank those who are return visitors who have come back to see the welcoming of Vandongen J 2.0, despite enduring the embellishments that were inflicted on you at my welcoming at the Supreme Court just under two and a half years ago. I am very grateful for the attendance in court today of many distinguished people. In a moment I will circle back to speak about Chief Justice Quinlan and the many other members of the Supreme Court who are here today. However, I would first like to acknowledge and thank the Chief Justice and my other Federal Court colleagues for their generosity and for their presence on the Bench today, particularly as it has meant that some of them have had to travel to be here. I am particularly honoured by the presence of past members of this Court, the Honourable Robert French AC, the Honourable Tony Siopis SC and the Honourable Neil McKerracher KC. I’m also delighted that Chief Judge Wager, Chief Magistrate Heath, Deputy Chief Magistrate Woods, Deputy President Burford, several Judges of the Federal Circuit Court and the District Court, Magistrates and members of the Administrative Review Tribunal are here today. I’ve known many of you for a long, long time and I thank you all for being here today.
In no particular order I would also like to single out and specifically thank each of the Honourable John Quigley MLA, Commissioner John McKechnie AO KC, the Honourable Andrew Beech SC, Judge John Prior, Judge Gary Massey, Judge Mara Barone, Judge Seamus Rafferty, Magistrate Richard Huston, Magistrate Evan Shackleton, Joshua Thomson SC, David Manera, Ashley Wilson, James Scovell and Meneesha Michalka for their presence. There is not enough time to explain why I have singled you out. Each of you know that you have been instrumental in this appointment.
I am very fortunate that several friends who have nothing to do with the legal profession accepted an invitation to be here today. That’s probably because some of them have very little else to do anyway. They include friends from university, friends from our neighbourhood whose children have grown up with our own, and some long-standing friends of my family. For most of them, this is their first experience of a judicial welcoming ceremony. Happily for me, many of them probably think that what they just heard fall from the three lawyers who spoke today was the unvarnished truth. My friends from outside the legal profession provide me with a safe haven away from the issues that occupy the legal side of my brain and give me much needed perspective on life. Three of my long-standing friends from school are also here. They form part of what we firmly believe was the best PSA rowing First Eight of all time. Please don’t ask them what I was like at school. They will only incriminate themselves.
The Chief Justice, all of my new judicial colleagues and everyone who works at the West Australian Registry of the Federal Court have made me feel very welcome from the first day I started in this Court. I sincerely thank everyone who has helped my seamless transition for all your care and attention, for your support and for your professionalism. I would particularly like to thank Registrars Trott and Goucke, Suzie Ladlow, Donna Friedl and Gemma Broughton, and the executive assistants, Deanne Jaffe and Deborah Edmonds.
I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of everyone involved in what was an invaluable induction process that was delivered to the new Judges over a two-week period. As the Chief Justice mentioned, this is the Federal Court’s eighth welcoming ceremony in the last month. I’ve already dropped a subtle hint that I’m a card-carrying member of the rowing cult, so I would like to propose that the eight new Judges should now collectively be referred to as the Federal First Eight. With today’s announcement that Graeme Hill SC will be joining the Court, it seems that we will now also have a coxswain.
As there have been eight ceremonies, there is one person who will breathe a big sigh of relief after today has been done and dusted. That is the Court’s executive officer, Dimitra Argyros. In the past month, she has organised all of those welcoming ceremonies. She has done an amazing job under considerable pressure, and I thank her and all of those who have assisted her.
I said that I would come back to talk about my former colleagues at the Supreme Court and at the Court of Appeal. I’m particularly grateful that many of them are here present today in Court. I sincerely thank them for their collegiality and support. I will particularly miss the encouragement, support and banter of Justices Lemonis and Mazza. I loved working in both courts. It was intellectually rewarding and challenging. I feel extremely lucky to have been surrounded by some of the finest legal minds this State has to offer. It was also a privilege to work with the many people at the Court who were not lawyers. One of my favourites was Edd. Edd, who must surely be related to The Rock, is the security guard who keeps watch at the old Supreme Court building. Every day, almost without exception, Edd would greet me at the front door of the Supreme Court with the words, “Morning, bro.”
With the benefit of hindsight, the timing of my departure from the Court of Appeal was not ideal. It meant that the other members of that Court who were already trying to drink from the proverbial fire hose were then asked to endure a further increase in the water pressure. I am sorry that this occurred, and I hope that they will forgive me in time. It was a genuine pleasure to work under the stewardship of Chief Justice Peter Quinlan. He has created a Court in which everyone is made to feel they are part of a family. His leadership generally but more specifically in securing the proper administration of justice in this State often takes place behind the scenes and is not always well known but deserves public acknowledgement. When I told the Chief Justice late last year that I was about to betray him, his response reverberated over several floors at the David Malcolm Justice Centre.
With the benefit of hindsight, I should have video recorded the event so that I could show it to a certain number one draft pick at the West Coast Eagles to explain what might happen to him if he ever thinks about deserting. However, the aftershocks eventually abated, and the Chief Justice has generally supported my decision to accept an appointment to this Court. Those of you who are still awake will have noticed that I used the word “generally”. It was a word that I deliberately chose. Let me explain why.
Recently, the Chief Justice sent me a text, attached to which was a video of a scene from one of my very favourite films, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. In that scene, which is set in a Roman amphitheatre, the members of the Python crew yell one word, loudly and in unison, at the only member of a certain people’s front sitting on his own. That word, of course, was “splitter”. I do like quotes from the Python movie, so you will forgive me if I use another one: Chief Justice is “a very naughty boy.”
I’ve already thanked the Chief Justice for his support privately, but I now do so publicly. I’m very pleased to see that my two former associates are here today, Ms Remy Hateley and Mr Kris Bowtell. My current associates, Ms Lisa Baxter and Ms Jorja Millington, are also here. They are all intelligent, strong-willed and opinionated young people, which is just what I need in an associate. Remy recently set the tone for the way all my associates interact with me when, in response to her being told what I wanted done, Remy said, with her hands held up, “No Judge. We are not going to do that. This is what we are going to do.” You will have noticed her repeated use of the word “we” – so much for judicial independence.
Finally, I come to my family. They are the most important people in my life. My wife, Merrilee, and I have been together since we were at university. Those of you who were at my other welcoming may remember that I said that she is the most intelligent, loving, thoughtful and generous person that I know. I was right. She is. For a long time, I have received the public recognition when she is the one most deserving of recognition for all she has done – not only for our family – but also for the broader community. She is also a far cleverer lawyer than I will ever be. We are very lucky to have three children, James, Charlotte and William. Each of them is forging their own pathway in life, and I am very proud of their achievements, and I feel privileged to be their father. Like all good children, they adore my sense of humour, admire and respect everything I say and do without question, and generally, think that I’m a legend.
My mother, Yvonne, my sister, Gemma, her husband, Chris, and their children, Izzy and Ari, are here today. My mother-in-law, Leonie, my sister-in-law, Fiona, and James’ partner, Riley, are here also. My brother-in-law, John, and my nephews, Jack and Rory, are here in spirit and I thank each of them for their continuing love and support. It is usual on these occasions for new Judges to say something about the Judge they hope to be in the future. As I have now been a Judge for almost two and a half years, I don’t want to provide evidence for a performance review. I will only say that I hope that I have done a reasonable job up to this point, and to the extent that I haven’t, I promise that I will do better in the future. Thank you very much for your attendance.
MORTIMER CJ: Thank you, Justice Vandongen. The Court will now adjourn.
