It was announced on Tuesday that the Honourable Justice Stephen Gageler AC will replace the Honourable Chief Justice Susan Kiefel AC as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. His Honour will become the 14th person to lead Australia’s apex court since its inception. Justice Gageler joined the High Court in 2012, having served as Australia's Solicitor-General prior to his appointment. The Bar wishes Justice Gageler all the very best, as he transitions into the new role.

Last Friday I was in Brisbane to attend the Bar Association of Queensland’s annual dinner. It was an excellent event in a very scenic venue right on the Brisbane River waterfront. I enjoyed the speeches by ABA president Peter Dunning KC, and the Hon Justice Flanagan of the Supreme Court of Queensland. All the locals were all very welcoming and it was well worth attending.

On Monday afternoon, I informed members that Bar Council had resolved to support a proposal put forward by BCL to ‘stagger and cap’ the rent rises announced in May. The BCL board has since implemented the proposal as detailed in Monday’s email. The rent increases address pricing disparities that have existed in our network of chambers for many years. They also address significant rises in costs that BCL has incurred since the pandemic.

This week

On Wednesday, an article was published by The Australian which drew attention to our stance on the federal government’s draft Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 (Cth). The Bill is part of an effort to control the dissemination of misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms. While this is a noble intent, as I highlighted last week, the Bar is concerned that the Bill’s response to the identified danger is insufficiently sensitive to, and protective of, freedom of expression and related privacy interests. For the reasons articulated in our submission, we respectfully urge the government to scrap the Bill.

As many members will know, we are often asked to make submissions in respect of proposed legislative reform. Given the high number of submissions we put out, it is not feasible to alert members to every submission we make. However, this week we prepared a particularly important one in response to a request from the LCA about the exposure draft of the Australian Government’s Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023. In our submission, we state that, while we acknowledge the potential harm posed by the rapid and widespread dissemination of false or otherwise harmful information online, we have significant concerns about the Bill’s response to that danger. In our view, the Bill is insufficiently sensitive to, and protective of, freedom of expression and related privacy interests. If you have the time, I recommend you read it. It can be found here. I would like to thank Gina Schoff KC, Mark Robins KC and Romauld Andrew KC for their help in pulling it together, and special thanks and acknowledgement go to James McComish and Dr Julian Murphy for their sterling contributions to the document.