In the early days of Spring 2002  Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died after over seventy years on the throne and a life  impeccably dedicated to service . With some friends I toasted her memory with her favourite drink a  Dubonnet and gin. Upon Her Majesty’s death , Queen’s Counsel became King’s Counsel , except those designated with the Cromwellian post-nominal  “SC” who remained as such.   She served in World War II . Her generation, known as the Greatest Generation , born between 1901 and 1927, have all but gone.My father and three uncles all saw active service overseas in the Second AIF . My godfather served on the second HMAS Australia . One of my best friends from my days as a member of the Sydney University Athletics Club was Eric Wilson. He graduated in Economics in 1938 , a fellow student and friend was Roden Cutler , later Sir Roden Cutler,VC and Governor of New South Wales.  Upon the declaration of war Eric  enlisted in the army and served  in the 8^th Division in Malaya and Singapore. After two weeks of active fighting he was taken as  a prisoner of war. He was incarcerated both  in Changi and on the Burma Rail. He survived captivity by being selected by Dr Weary Dunlop as a nursing assistant. He told me that Weary had said to him “Eric , you are a graduate in economics you’ll  make  a good nurse”. Upon return from the war Eric took up athletics again as a champion race walker and worked as an economist for the Reserve Bank.    My  godmother’s husband Commander Bill Ritchie ,AM is still alive and was born eight weeks before the Queen. He  was a career naval officer serving in the Royal Australian Navy in World War II,Korea, the Malayan Emergency and in South Vietnam. Her Majesty acceded to the throne in 1952 and her longevity can be put in context when one realises the following ,that at that time ,Sir Owen Dixon was the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia , Sir Raymond Kelly was Chief Judge of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration ( before the Boilermakers case,i.e., R v Kirby ;ex parte Boilermakers’ Society of Australia (1956) 94 CLR 254  had been decided)  the larrikin, Justice Stanley Cassin Taylor was the President of the Industrial Commission of New South Wales and Chairman of the Workers Compensation Commission was Judge A.C. Conybeare Q.C., a predecessor to Judge Frank McGrath whose obituary is  in this edition’s Last Word column.  The Basic Wage across the capital cities of Australia was on average ten pounds ten shillings per week. The Queen of Blessed Memory , has like these Antipodean legal luminaries now past into history . The past is indeed a foreign country .

As important as the Boilermakers’ case  was in the 1950s for industrial law this edition again has detailed and further analysis of  perhaps two of the most important contract of employment law cases in Australia for decades. On 9 February 2022, the High Court of Australia delivered judgments in Construction, Forestry,Maritime, Mining and Energy Union v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd (Personnel Contracting)1 and ZG

Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek (Jamsek). In addition to the article provided in the last edition , by Queensland barrister Ryan Haddrick three more treatments of Personnel Contraction and Jamsek are found within this edition . Leading employment law  barrister , Tom Dixon , who was one of the counsel in Personnel Contracting provides his close perspective of the facts and consequences flowing from that case and Jamsek  . Next Charlie Gonzales in the rather combative title, ‘Freedom of Contract or Freedom to Exploit –A Lochner-esque Future? A Comparative Analysis of Recent Australian Cases on the Employee/Independent Contractor Distinction’ deals with the same cases and like Dixon deals with the landmark 1905 United States  Supreme Court case of Lochner v New York 198 US  45 which held that the New York state law setting maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers’ rights to freedom of contract under the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.To round off the treatment of Personnel Contracting and Jamsek  Nicola Nygh and Katariina Hatakka from Resolve Litigation Lawyers focus on how this case may affect the status of those workers engaged in the so-called Gig Economy .

Continuing the historical examination of how the past can affect current employment circumstances Workplace Review editor ,Craig Ryan looks back to 1919 and the arrival on these shores of the ‘Spanish Flu’ and the Freemantle waterfront dispute of that era.

This edition’s  interview is with Alice DeBoos , Managing Partner of employment law firm Kingston Reid who provides a great insight into her career trajectory and the influencers who have shaped her and her firm’s success . Thank you Simon Fieldhouse for an outstanding portrait of our interviewee.

Our book review by Magistrate Jennifer Giles , reaches back to the nineteenth century and Charles Dickens’ Bleak House . Many lawyers have heard about this book however few have read it . However the case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce remains a cautionary tale of the pitfalls and cost of litigation as true today as it was in Victorian times . Of the Court of Chancery it was said, “ Suffer any wrong  that can be done you , rather than come here”.Dickens’ apt turn of phrase in his descriptions of the many characters who inhabit this 400 page novel remind Giles of many lawyers she met over her career as a solicitor and on the Bench since 1997. Like Giles I was taken by the picture painted of the lawyer Mr Tulkinghorn as “ an oyster of the old school whom nobody can open”. Some of the lawyers I first met when I started as a law clerk in 1977 could have easily been in a Dickens’ novel. The first barrister I ever instructed Dick Dillon  who was admitted to the Bar in 1939 . Once I was waiting for Dillon  with a client in  Wentworth Chambers for a conference . Dillon who served in the Royal Navy in World War II on destroyers on Artic convoys gave new meaning to the adjective ‘dishevelled’. Suddenly Dillon appeared, more shocking to the client than me,  with a bloodied handkerchief around his neck running to the lift. “Phillips!” , he exclaimed , “ I have cut myself shaving ,I am off to Sydney Hospital the conference is cancelled !” I recall also being instructed in my early years at the Bar by a solicitor, Myer Rosenblum, who was born in Russia in 1908 . He was hard of hearing and wore reading glasses of the pince nez variety . Once in court he bellowed  that I was asking too many questions of his client and that “ I am not paying for anymore!”

I sat down ,

“ No further questions Your Honour”.

Finally, my Last Word column is sadly filled with obituaries of three judges whom I knew well.

Sic transit gloria  mundi

Jeffrey Phillips,SC

State Chambers,

Sydney

LAST WORD

“Mortal coil” is a poetic term for the troubles of daily life and the strife and suffering of the world. As an expression, it most famously found in Hamlet’s soliloquy,

”To be or not to be,that is the question….

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause-there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life…….”

In April this year a giant of the industrial and personal injury world shuffled off this mortal coil, The Hon Dr Frank McGrath AM OBE, Chairman of the NSW Workers Compensation Commission and from 1984 to 1993 Chief Judge of the Compensation Court of New South Wales. The Chairman as he was colloquially known in workers compensation circles was born in Birkenhead, England in 1921. His father, James, a shipwright and mother Mary, a tailoress emigrated to Australia with their only child in 1924. After attending Canterbury Boys’ High School ( John Howard’s alma mater) Frank completed a BA (Hons) in History, with the University Medal in 1942, later his MA and LLB at the University of Sydney. Having originally trained as a teacher, unable to get work on account of wartime restrictions he became a blacksmiths’ striker at Mort’s Dock in Balmain. McGrath became a member of the Federated Ironworkers Association(FIA)  in which a huge struggle for control was in full swing between Communist Party and non-communist factions of which he was a member of the latter. Violence on the waterfront was commonplace.McGrath was assaulted by the communist organiser, Arthur Olive who served twenty days gaol rather than pay ten pounds compensation to McGrath( perhaps when he gained an early appreciation of damages for personal injury).

However, McGrath’s legendary status in the Cold War environment of the trade union world came when he was working as a solicitor for Carroll & O’Dea which was acting for union leader Laurie Short. Short had brought proceedings to quash the election results in the FIA on account of alleged electoral fraud. Though Short had Eric Miller, KC and John Kerr as his barristers the breakthrough in the case was when McGrath noticed something strange about the ballot papers which were votes for the communists as compared to the votes for Short. The ballot papers had not been printed by the Government Printer but by a small firm which employed a number of members of the Communist Party, The communists votes had a preponderance of indentations which compelling suggested that a voter had a plie of ballot papers of the same sort ,which he or she worked through voting one by one indenting the paper underneath. No such indentations were found on the votes for Short. Justice Dunphy overturned the result of the election. In time the Communists who controlled this key blue collar union were routed. Short and his right-wing allies won the union which gave important votes to the right wing of the ALP. In the days of lucrative common law and compensation work for workplace injuries one would have thought that Carroll & O’Dea would have reaped the riches of this success. However,  Short, an ex-Trotskyist was good friends with another former supporter of Leon Trotsky, Jim McClelland.  His law firm got the work and benefited from the ‘rivers of gold’ for decades by doing the workplace damages claims for injured members of the FIA. McGrath went to the Bar and practiced from Fourth Floor Wentworth Chambers.

During his long career on the Bench McGrath was the model of civility to counsel and the injured workers. At his retirement sitting the Hon Michael Kirby described McGrath as ‘a just and accurate judge’ and one of his mentors.

In retirement at the age of 79 McGrath completed his PhD. It was published as a book, The Framers of the Australian Constitution ,1891-1897:Their Intentions, which Professor David Flint described in his foreword as ‘a significant contribution to our understanding of the interpretation of the Australian Constitution.’

To return to and paraphrase Hamlet , McGrath was not taken down by ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune’ but by taking up arms against a sea of troubles by opposing them he brought them to an end.

McGrath reached 100 years of age.

Two other judges who have recently departed the same coil with whom I had dealings with during my early days at the Bar were Judge Ray Burke of the Compensation Court of New South Wales and Justice Barrie Hungerford, QC of the Industrial  Commission of New South Wales.

Ray Burke spent most of his professional career in matters concerning workers compensation law and became an unrivalled expert in it. He died this year aged 93 years. In a dinner at Tattersall’s Club in 2001 to mark his retirement from the Bench the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG spoke. He recounted how his first job as an articled clerk was with the firm M A Simon and Co in Hunter Street, Sydney of which Burke was a partner. Burke’s and his other partner Maurie Simon were on the Labor Council of NSW panel for advice and representation for injured workers. Kirby stated of Burke ‘Amongst his many saintly qualities, one which  I could not honestly attribute to Ray Burke was trappist silence or loveable patience.’ He also informed the dinner that ‘Neither Ray Burke nor M A Simon were quiet retiring types…..Each seemed constantly to be looking for a reason to shout and scream at the other.’

That was refreshing to read that because I thought it was me who caused his Honour to lose his temper in court. I have vivid memories of pejorative comments from the Burke Bench about my ability and competence as counsel.

Once I  announced the resolution of a case on day three of its hearing.

The following is an accurate paraphrase of the transcript.

PHILLIPS: Your Honour, may I mention the fourth matter in your Honour’s list in which I appear for the applicant?

HIS HONOUR: Yes, Mr Phillips.

PHILLIPS: I can happily inform your Honour that that matter has settled.

HIS HONOUR:  Settled?

PHILLIPS: Yes, your Honour.

HIS HONOUR: Settled! After you have wasted three days of court time and three days of my life?

PHILLIPS: Settlement was no doubt brought about by your Honour’s helpful comments throughout the hearing.

HIS HONOUR: If only you had listened more closely to what I had said to you on the morning of day one!

However, with Judge Burke, known endearingly as “Mad Ray”, I soon realised his apparently acerbic comments were not personal but in his own irascible way meant to speed things along and be helpful to those who were listening.  His true ire was reserved for members of the Court of Appeal and the High Court of Australia who dallied on appeal into workers’ compensation law whom he believed mucked up its symmetry and empathy.

Long after his retirement some of Burke’s decisions are still treated reverentially as authority, in particular, his explanation of what is ‘reasonable medical treatment’ for which the insurer is liable, see Rose v Health Commission (NSW) [1986]NSWCC2: (1986) 2 NSWCCR 32 at 42.

—————————-

Barrie Clive Hungerford,QC was born in 1937.He attended Trinity Grammar at Summer Hill.  He graduated from Royal Military College Duntroon in 1958. After a few years service in the Australian Army he worked as an industrial officer of the then Metal Trades Industry Association. He studied law and joined the Bar in 1976 and was appointed one of Her Majesty’s Counsel in 1988 and one year later was appointed a judicial member of the Industrial Commission of New South Wales, later to be the IRC of NSW . Upon retirement from the IRC  Hungerford became an acting judge of the District Court of New South Wales. Although coming from the ranks of the employers on the bench Hungerford often found in favour of the workers. His decision in  Starkey v Mitchforce (2000) 101 IR 177 was probably the high water mark of the jurisdiction of the Industrial Relations Commission in its unfair contracts jurisdiction. That case related to a lease agreement for hotel premises based upon on the provision giving jurisdiction to the IRC to re-write a contract ‘whereby a person performs work in any industry’. The decision to vary the hotel lease was appealed to the Full Bench of the IRC which refused leave, see Mitchforce Pty Ltd v Starkey  (2002) 117 IR 122. The Court of Appeal on further appeal was not so minded, Mitchforce  Pty Ltd v Industrial Relations Commission of NSW  (2003) 57 NSWLR 212. Chief Justice Spigelman at 226 said that ‘The lease in this case stands alone as a lease of property’.Though it may have ‘contemplated’ work that was not its ‘purpose’ so the worker protection provisions of s.106 of the Industrial Relations Act (NSW) were not enlivened.

Thereafter closer attention to the extent of the jurisdiction exercised by the IRC was given by the Court of Appeal and the High Court.

The NSW IRC’s jurisdiction concerning unfair contracts was specifically repealed in 2006  by the WorkChoices legislation using the Corporations power of the Australian Constitution.  

Barrie was a committed smoker and drinker of full strength Coca Cola.

“ To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub :

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come….”

Jeffrey Phillips, SC

State Chambers 

THE GAME A Portrait of Scott Morrison by Sean Kelly

Black Inc.,2021

One would not expect that a book about Prime Minister Scott Morrison written by a Sydney Morning Herald journalist and a former staff member of both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard’s offices would be a flattering depiction.  One will struggle to find much positive comment or any flattery in this book about its subject.

However, Sean Kelly, as a political journalist, has a  grudging recognition that if politics is a game ( hence the book’s title) then Morrison has indeed played ‘the game’ well, being the longest-serving  PM since John Howard.

The origins of this book, a portrait not a biography, are an article Kelly wrote for The Monthly in 2018.

Kelly asserts that Morrison despite being in politics for ten years and public life for twenty was the most anonymous politician to be elected PM in several decades. A clue to anyone in politics is their employment background. Morrison’s career was in marketing. Kelly refers to E.M.Forster’s literary theory of characters in a novel as either ‘flat’ or ‘round’.Flat characters could be seen as caricatures and can be captured in a sentence or two.The benefit of which was that they never needed re-introduction and were easily recognised. Consciously or unconsciously Morrison has become the archetype of middle Australia, the daggy suburban Dad who likes his footy and a barby with his mates. Almost like a marketing campaign from Tourism Australia akin to  Lara Bingle with a Pure Blond beer in her hand yelling  over the backyard fence “Where the Bloody Hell are ya?”

This flat ‘ordinary man’ image has been pilloried by his detractors but has also led to underestimation of his ambition and skill in ‘the dark arts’ by many more fancied opponents such as Abbott, Turnbull and Shorten all of whom lie in his wake. As a marketer Morrison, despite being raised in Sydney’s Bronte and having played rugby union , continued to press home the ‘ordinary man’ message by relentlessly in the past few years talking about the Sutherland Shire and its NRL team the Cronulla Sharks.

Despite these skills,  ScoMo and the Coalition are well behind in the polls  and facing defeat in 2022. In his account Kelly tries to identify why its has unravelled for Morrison. He pinpoints various issues and Morrison’s response to them, namely the  bushfires in late 2019 early 2020, the continuing pandemic commencing in early 2020 and the #MeToo Movement.

Despite the Shire dream holiday being on a Jetstar flight to Hawaii it was always going to be clumsy decision during the bushfire crisis to fly away on an overseas holiday. In defence of his decision the rather vacuous comment “I don’t hold a hose”( in contradistinction to Bush Fire Brigade member Tony Abbott) went down badly. Morrison’s trip to fire ravaged NSW country town Cobargo was a PR disaster.

The pandemic has been problematic for all governments across the world . The National Cabinet was meant to be an idea to co-ordinate the response across the Commonwealth but at various times recalcitrant state premiers have made the federal government look weak. Morrison’s comment about containing the virus,  “It’s not a race” was ill-judged. An equally ill-disciplined statement was Morrison’s parliamentary attack against the then Australia Post Christine Holgate’s bonus to senior executives of Cartier watches . The watches worth about $5000 each ,if given as cash bonuses would have attracted no attention . The idea of Cartier watches did not pass the Shire pub test. A settlement with Holgate , possibly large enough to buy all the spectators at Shark Park a Cartier watch, was made.

The #MeToo Movement reached well into the Morrison Government with the loss of an Attorney-General, another minister stood down pending an inquiry and an allegation of a late-night rape within Parliament House by one staffer against another.

Kelly’s criticism of Morrison relates not just the way he has handled the above issues but how in explaining his response at press conferences he obsfucates giving long, meandering non-answers .

However Kelly’s strongest and perhaps most unfair commentary about Morrison is his signal role in stopping illegal arrivals to this country by boat. Morrison’s actions he criticises as being callous and hypocritical to his Christian faith . Morrison stopped  the people smugglers who placed their human cargo often times in unseaworthy craft without care for their safety. To permit this ghastly trade to continue would have only led to more deaths at sea.It was an issue which harmed the Labor Party electorally,  perhaps that is why it still rankles with Kelly.

The book although it shows Kelly’s wide reading, with literary allusions from Lewis Carroll, to E.M. Forster to Donald Horne,   has a tendency to drift off in tangents, it is a serious attempt to understand a  Prime Minister who remains a flat character. Despite Kelly’s barracking for the other side if Morrison pulls off the next election it would be more miraculous than his win in 2019 and Cronulla’s first premiership win in its history in 2016.

Jeffrey Phillips,SC

State Chambers 

Aux bien pensants

Freedom fights back… over lunch

David Flint

There is reason to be optimistic in a dark and menacing world, and not only because the terrible rape of the Ukraine has led to the end of that mass delusion, net zero emissions.

In addition, providing they can overcome several states’ rigged and unconstitutional electoral laws, it seems likely that Republicans will prevail in the mid-terms with Donald Trump back in the White House two years later.

At home, tribune of the people and the nation’s leading broadcaster, Alan Jones, is already back. Chaired by Maurice Newman, ADH.tv is the brainchild of three young and brilliant men, CEO Jack Bulfin, Jake Thrupp (whose book Australia Tomorrow made such an impact) and Alex Baird, a Young Ambassador for the Crown, Constitution and Flag.

Their energy, their talent, and their mastery of the latest technology augur well for this new platform, one which will no doubt make a considerable mark, and not only in Australia.

Another thing is that notwithstanding the incidence of fraud, at least the electorate can again rejoice on the return of the Senate preferences stolen from them in 1984.

This came up when Spectator Australia editor Rowan Dean suggested a coffee with Speccie contributors who were at the federalist Samuel Griffith Society Conference at Sydney’s Brighton-Le-Sands, James Allen, Rocco Loiacono, and me.

When I said that we should thank Malcolm Turnbull for giving back our preferences, this was met with more than raised eyebrows. The fact is that until the Turnbull double dissolution, a vote above the line was not only for that party’s state Senate candidates, all preferences flowed the way determined in various backroom deals.

But then the smaller parties worked out how they too could share in the spoils. This was best demonstrated when, with a mere 0.51 per cent of the primary vote, Australian Motoring Enthusiast party candidate Ricky Muir was able, through deals with 23 parties, to increase this 0.51 per cent to the minimum quota for a seat, 14.3 per cent.

The two-party duopoly surrendered, and the law was changed. Now, we can allocate our own preferences. And, although we are told to allocate a minimum of six preferences to parties above the line or 12 to candidates below the line, the law says our votes are still valid if we only make one preference above the line, or 6 below.

Meanwhile, what was to have been a coffee became, as an exercise in editorial prerogative, a delightful lunch in a nearby restaurant on Brighton-Le-Sands’ Grand Parade, Le Sands Pavillion.

To say this is a waterfront restaurant is inadequate. It offers wonderful dining at the water’s edge and on this occasion what has become a rarity this year in Sydney, a sunny Sunday afternoon.

You could almost have been on the Aegean.

I had the best grilled barramundi I have ever had, and with service which would have been appropriate in the very best hotel. Our host, Peter Antonopoulos, could not have been more welcoming or more charming.

To our surprise, overlooking us was a private room where, at a long table, there were a large number of delegates from the Samuel Griffith Conference. They were being entertained by what seemed to be an impromptu operatic challenge between two tenors, one being none other than the eminent silk, Jeffrey Phillips. If the NSW Bar were not inhabited by so many republicans at a time when that jaded fashion could not be more passé, he would be Jeffrey Phillips QC, Queen’s Counsel.

The first and last time I saw anything like this, impromptu singing by a tenor on his feet in a restaurant, was in Rome sixty years ago when the chanteur, looking as though he had stepped out of a Fellini film, sang a magnificent operatic aria, his long coat stylistically slung over his shoulders.

Also in that group at the Brighton-Le-Sands was the leading Melbourne QC ( yes, a left-wing state has Queen’s Counsel), Stuart Wood.

He had appeared for the 28-year-old Ballarat mother arrested in pyjamas in front of her children and handcuffed by Victorian police for a Facebook post about a lockdown protest.

A video of that went around the world, making Australia look like a police state.

That reminded me of a recent speech given by Larry P. Arnn, eminent president of the US 177-years-old liberal arts college Hillsdale which, as a matter of principle, is one of the very few universities to refuse government funding.

Recalling that hitherto the procedure for dealing with viruses, at least in the civilised world, was to isolate the sick and protect the vulnerable, but that suddenly we had new procedures to isolate everybody, he said  this had turned out to be a complete disaster.

That the lockdown was challenged in the Great Barrington Declaration by 50,000 doctors, scientists and medical researchers, some from the most distinguished universities in the world, was ignored by the media and suppressed by Big Tech.

Nevertheless, the 50,000 pointed out that you just cannot suppress a widely disseminated contagious virus through lockdowns and mass isolation. And if you try to, you will cause immeasurable destruction of new kinds ─ unemployment, bankruptcy, depression, suicide, multiplying public debt, broken supply chains and increases of other serious health problems.

Meanwhile the Samuel Griffith Society continues, almost alone, to argue for a return to the Constitution as it was conceived by the Founders and approved by the people.

If this were accepted, governance would be significantly improved.

The Society is appropriately led by former High Court judge, Ian Callinan QC. He was the judge, who at least in living memory, was most inclined to defend the Federation and the role of the people in preventing inappropriate change.

His message is clear and as crises emerge there must be a reconsideration of what the founders and people wanted, a truly federal Australia.

This, and what is happening throughout the free world, confirms to me that there is hope still for the future.

WORKPLACE REVIEW   

EDITORIAL

The year 2020 will be forever linked with the COVID-19 pandemic. This issue of Workplace Review has devoted a number of articles to the way in which the legal profession and the industrial relations world has come to terms with the lockdown and social distancing.  It is clear that the practice of law may never return to what it was, as indeed the wider workplace itself.

In relation to this, I have provided some experiences in The Last Word column at the of court rooms for the Bench, Bar and parties coping with the new health regulations.  Neil Napper has provided an article as to how solicitors’ firms have had to change the way their professional duties. Judge Gerard Phillips, the President of the Workers Compensation Commission of New South Wales has provided his tribunal’s response.  Importantly, Craig Ryan, the Publishing Editor from Thomson Reuters, has provided an excellent article dealing with the way industry through various regulations and also proceedings before the Fair Work Commission, has attempted to cope with this problem. In particular, in order to get the economy moving, interesting questions perhaps hitherto off-limits or unimagined have been raised; for example, Ryan makes reference to what the CEO of the Australian Retailers Association, Paul Zahra, has said that because of the changing nature of the way people shop, a more flexible approach might require retail employers to be able to take a more ‘pragmatic and flexible’ approach to issues such as penalty rates and trading hours.  To this end, his Association supports a structure where penalties only apply when an individual works outside their preferred hours.  That is a very significant change to current circumstances.

The cover of this edition features Simon Fieldhouse’s portrait of ‘Mr Green Bans’ Jack Mundey AO, with his 1970s flowing hair and bushy sideburns.  Jack Mundey has recently deceased and this edition is dedicated as a tribute to him. That dedication is supported by three articles.

Firstly, from Darren Greenfield, the State Secretary of the CFMEU Construction and General Division New South Wales.

Secondly, the former President of the New South Wales Legislative Council, Meredith Burgmann, AM.  Meredith has been a lifelong activist. The most example of her activism, in my recollection of having invaded the Sydney Cricket Ground pitch during the 1971 match between the Wallabies and the Springboks.  She evaded security by jumping the fence at the Members’ Stand where it was thought little security was required.

Thirdly, we have been provided with an excellent detailed piece by a former secretary of the New South Wales Labor Council, Dr. Michael Easson, AM  who had a long personal friendship with Jack and identified how Jack himself had friends across the political divide, even though he had been member of the Communist Party of Australia.  I recall meeting Mundey at the celebrated anti-communist unionist, Laurie Short’s memorial service held at the Trades Hall.

There are a number of other obituaries of famous people in the industrial relations world who have shuffled off this mortal coil.  Former Justice Macken of the Industrial Commission of New South Wales and the author of Macken’s Law of Employment has an obituary written by his son, James Macken, a barrister from Canberra.

Next, a former Justice of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Paul Munro, provides an in-depth obituary for Joe Isaacs, a famous economist who also served on the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission; and finally, Ingmar Taylor, SC provides a very moving tribute to Peteris Ginters, a young talented barrister cut down in his prime by Motor Neurone Disease.

WE have two articles from our South Australian colleagues being one on so-called ‘wage theft’ by Kirsty Stewart, Rick Manuel and Kaz Eaton; and another by Rick Manuel and Susan Zeitz dealing with the recent decision of WorkPac Pty Ltd v Rosatto [2020] FCAFC 84 dealing with the vexed question of the definition of casual employment.  It is believed that this case will be headed off to the High Court.

Book reviews have become a notable feature of this journal and this one is no different.  Former Barrister and State Member for Cronulla, Malcolm Kerr, OAM  provides an interesting insight into a new biography of Prince Albert, consort to and husband of  Queen Victoria and his role in the industrial revolution.  I provide a review of Sonia Henry’s debut novel regarding the travails of young doctors in a busy teaching hospital and Phillip Sutherland provides his views on the new book Heydon on Contract.

In my opinion, this is one of the better editions Workplace Review has had in its 10 year history.  I hope you enjoy it.

I speak for myself and Neil Napper in thanking Thomson Reuters for supporting this publication and the faith it has bestowed on me and Neil as co-editors. Workplace relations is essentially about people. We have strived to examine, inter alia, relevant issues and the personalities of the practitioners who develop those issues.

Jeffrey Phillips, SC

State Chambers