EDITOR'S OPINION Jason MacLaurin SC Editor, Brief | Barrister, Francis Burt Chambers
Christmas is just around the corner and this last edition of Brief for 2021 is a bumper (or, as is a currently preferred status, boosted) edition. Readers should feel free to read it near others and take it on holidays in WA, or possibly even to Tasmania. 10 December was International Human Rights Day, and this edition features the first of a special two-part Human Rights feature. Brief thanks Greg McIntyre SC (former President of the Law Society) for his erudite and insightful Foreword, which introduces the contributing authors and their articles, and provides thought-provoking comments on issues ventilated by them. The next (February 2022) edition will have Part 2 of this Human Rights feature, so please feel free, empowered and at liberty (puns partially intended) to give Brief any feedback you have about this edition. The Editor is particularly grateful for Greg’s Foreword, as it supplants that part of the Editorial otherwise addressing in detail the Human Rights feature, liberating more space here for the usual cavalcade of tortured segues (occurring ad nauseam), non sequiturs, the unnecessary use of latin, and split infinitives. So the Editor is very happy to share his annual remuneration as Editor with Greg, which is apparently two tickets to the new James Bond movie that everyone seems to know the ending to (though there will be no spoilers here as the screenwriters having done a capital job of spoiling the ending all by themselves). We are grateful for a fascinating interview with The Honourable Malcolm McCusker AC QC by Martin Bennett and Thaw Thaw Htin upon the occasion of, and reflecting upon, his 60th year in the law. On the theme of international days, International Anti-Corruption Day was on 9 December, and we have the CCC’s Matt McKeone provide a closer look at public sector corruption, a global problem WA is not immune from, and thank Foreign Affairs for permission to republish their insightful (though disconcerting) article on “The Rise of Global Strategic Corruption”.
3 December was the International Day of People with Disabilities, and we have an important and interesting article by Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Ben Gauntlett. We also have Justice Hall with a reminder of a gem in our midst: the David Malcolm Justice Centre law library, whose dedicated staff provide a fantastic – and free – service to the profession. As the legal profession eagerly awaits progression of the Uniform Law Konrad de Kerloy has an article on perhaps the ultimate lump of coal in any lawyer’s stocking, “Personal Costs Orders Against Legal Practitioners under the Uniform Law”. It is fitting that we end 2021 with a Human Rights edition given the everpresent impact of the reactions to COVID, which have involved incidents of isolation and the restriction of movement and other freedoms. Notably, something that West Australians have long considered an entrenched human right - a Perth test match where one can get sunstroke, taunt and/or then join the Barmy Army and [*tortured segue alert!*] end up looking like John Grant exiting the Bundanyabba Hotel in the 1971 film of Kenneth Cook’s novel “Wake in Fright”, will once again not be enjoyed. The holiday period lends itself to old movie watching, and it would be remiss to not mention an extraordinary era of Australian movies kicked off in 1971 by two often overlooked classics “Wake in Fright” and Nicholas Roeg’s “Walkabout”, which resulted in the Australian flag being flown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival 50 years ago. In looking back at some significant Australian cinema, we note also the recent passing away of the great and inspirational David Gulpilil Dalaithngu, whose great talent was initially recognised by Roeg, who cast him in “Walkabout”, and who went on, in addition to many other endeavours and achievements, to star in films such as “Storm Boy,” “The Last Wave”, “Crocodile Dundee I and II”, and “Australia”. Some Australian films of half a century
Australian cinema accordingly owes much to Harold Holt for hopping into that Chinese submarine in 1967. ago seem relevant to the present, as they frequently deal with themes of isolation, different forms of spirituality, and from where we derive our sense of right and wrong, good and bad, and what is and should be lawful and unlawful. Wake in Fright is an (often harrowing) examination of an isolated society, the rules and behaviours established therein, and the potential for the breakdown of a supposedly “good” individual in extreme circumstances. The protagonist, John Grant, is an English born bonded schoolteacher (“indentured servitude” as he quips with the local, morally ambiguous, policeman played by the great Australian actor and pioneer of the Australian film industry, Chips Rafferty) in outback SA. Grant is just trying to get back, during school holidays, to Sydney to see his girlfriend, but becomes trapped in Bundanyabba (“the Yabba” aka “the greatest place on Earth”) and is unable to make it out to Sydney, for a host of existentially challenging reasons, unassociated with being unvaxxed. The film has many lessons, perhaps the most obvious being don’t try to keep up drinking with someone like Chips Rafferty1, and don’t trifle with the supposedly “simple” game of “two up”2. While acolytes of God Gough Whitlam attribute the explosion in great Australian cinema to Whitlam — who undoubtedly played a major part including by his legendary cameo with Dame Edna Everage/Barry Humphries at the end of Bruce Beresford’s 1972 “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie”3 — it was under Prime Minister John Gorton (who had gone to school with Errol Flynn) that the initiatives and funding for Australian cinema were commenced. So, as all students of rigorous, factbased, and non-conspiratorial Australian history would appreciate, Australian cinema accordingly owes much to Harold Holt for hopping into that Chinese submarine in 1967. 5
