GLEESON CJ: What do you mean by “free choice”?

TEHAN QC: What we mean by “free choice”, your Honour, is a choice unconstrained by any pressure, hope of advantage or benefit or force or coercion or compulsion, a true free choice.

GLEESON CJ: You would be surprised to know that there are places I would rather be than here at the moment and the psychiatrists might explain my presence at the moment by reference to a number of influences or pressures that
produce that consequence, but I thought I was here as a result of a free choice. How is that consistent with your
explanation?

HAYNE J: Good luck, Mr Tehan.

TEHAN QC: It is always a matter of degree, your Honour.

KIRBY J: I could not think of a better place to be than here.

GLEESON CJ: I am sure that is probably right.

GAUDRON J: Now, would you like to read section 80 of the Constitution, Mr Wilson?

MR WILSON: Read section 80?

GAUDRON J: Yes, that is what - and see exactly what it relates to.

MR WILSON: I will read section 80 of the Constitution. It says:

The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury - - -

GAUDRON J: That is right, “against any law of the Commonwealth”. You are charged with contempt of court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

MR WILSON: Which is part of the Commonwealth.

GAUDRON J: Well, it may be part of the Commonwealth, but it deals with - - -

MR WILSON: You cannot exclude New South Wales from the Commonwealth.

GAUDRON J: - - - it deals with a distinct area of judicial power. It involves a distinct area of judicial power.

CALLINAN J: Mr Wilson, both the Commonwealth - - -

MR WILSON: I am a bit hard of hearing and I ask you to speak louder.

CALLINAN J: Both the Commonwealth and the States in Australia can make laws.

MR WILSON: And any law of a State - - -

CALLINAN J: No, no, you just listen to me for a moment - - -

MR WILSON: - - - which is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth is invalid under section 109.

CALLINAN J: No, Mr Wilson, you are not understanding what I am saying. They each can have laws within their own areas of power and the States have power to make laws for the regulation of the State courts, and that is, in effect, what you are charged with, breaking a law made for the regulation of proceedings in the State courts.

MR WILSON: Down in Canberra they have erect the Magna Carta monument. Have you been to see it? You will not answer? Mr Callinan, have you seen it?

CALLINAN J: Look, you cannot really ask me questions, but, yes, I did see it, Mr Wilson.

MR WILSON: Well, this is a two-way thing, you were asking me questions and I am asking you.

GUMMOW J: No, it is not a two-way thing, actually.

MR WILSON: It is not?

GUMMOW J: No.

MR WILSON: You are a dictator, are you?

GUMMOW J: No.

MR WILSON: “You just lay down and I say nothing.”

GUMMOW J: No.

MR WILSON: It is not on.

GUMMOW J: No, you are here to make your submissions on which we then rule.

MR WILSON: Yes.

GUMMOW J: We try to assist you by asking questions so that you can respond to what is on our mind.

MR WILSON: Your job - - -

GUMMOW J: Do not lecture us on what our job is, please.

MR WILSON: Your job is to ensure fairness.

GUMMOW J: No, it is not.

MR WILSON: It is not?

GUMMOW J: It is to apply justice, according to law.

MR WILSON: And what is justice? Justice is the protection of rights and the punishment of wrongs and justice is what I am after. Justice means - - -

GUMMOW J: Justice, according to law.

Counsel for the States started with the proposition that disputes are either industrial or not industrial. That is logically incontestable; and, as was said by counsel in Repton v Hodgson in a sentence which Jordan CJ brought to light in an essay, ‘Like Sinclair’s well-known division of sleeping into two sorts, namely, sleeping with or sleeping without a nightcap, it would seem to exhaust the subject’. But the presence or absence of the quality ‘industrial’ in a dispute is not as indisputably apparent as the presence or absence of a nightcap on a sleeper.  Read more »

To read words into any statute is a strong thing and, in the absence of clear necessity, a wrong thing …

[62] This is an appeal from the Chief Justice, which was argued by this Court over nine days, with some occasional assistance from the learned and experienced counsel who appeared for the parties. The evidence was taken and the matter argued before the Chief Justice in two days. This case involves two questions, of no transcendent importance, which are capable of brief statement, and could have been exhaustively argued by the learned counsel in a few hours.

‘George, are you sure it’s worth your while to go home?’

KIRBY J: Could you explain to me what a BMX bike is? My rather cloistered life has prevented my ever getting to know what that form of bicycle is.  Read more »

GLEESON CJ: You will explain to us how you find a matching bet?

MR S J GAGELER SC: I will, yes. That brings me to the little demonstration, your Honours. Your Honours ought have a bundle of material which is entitled “Demonstration of Online Betting”.

HAYNE J: How much of this is on the CD?

MR GAGELER: This is all on the CD, your Honour. On the CD it is——

KIRBY J: We had a Playstation shown to us in Sony and it was very exciting. Why did you not try that?  Read more »

KIRBY J: Sounds like the argument at the time about the new forms of cricket.

MR GAGELER: That is right.

KIRBY J: When new international approaches came which were linked to the new technology of television everybody said this is the end of civilisation as we know it but, in fact——

MR GAGELER: That is a very good analogy, your Honour, my learned friend from the West says it was.  Read more »