‘Among the factors weighing against Mr Heydon’s continued role are his own words in the case of British American Tobacco Australia Services Limited v Laurie, in which he addressed specifically, the importance of appearing to be fair.
“It is fundamental to the administration of justice that the judge be neutral,” he had written.
“It is for this reason that the appearance of departure from neutrality is a ground of disqualification … because the rule is concerned with the appearance of bias, and not the actuality, it is the perception of the hypothetical observer that provides the yardstick.”
Update Insiders 16th August. See introduction, commentary and Brendan O’Connor.
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/
Abbott resists calls to dump Dyson
This is from Humphrey McQueen
HOW TO FIX A ROYAL COMMISSION
RULE ONE: CAPTAIN’S PICK YOUR COMMISSIONER Dyson Heydon
RULE TWO: STUFF HIS EARS WITH MONEY $5-6,000 a day
RULE THREE: RIG HIS TERMS OF REFERENCE blind your boy to criminal bosses
See no evil in Grocon. Hear no evil of Transfield. Speak no evil of Boral.
THE CHARGE SHEET
Dyson Heydon is the most extreme right-winger ever on the High Court.
And that’s saying something given some of the reactionary swine there since 1903.
1999: He was ordered to repay $7m. for his bad legal advice to the NRMA in 1994 :
“colleagues say that Heydon, known to have a ferocious temper and a good command of a wide array of swear words, would be furious.” [SMH 14.5.99, p. 9]
How can Heydon pretend to be unbiased when he got twice as much from one job as a worker could earn in two life-times?
He stands to make more out of this Commission than a construction worker could earn in lifetime of wage-slaving till he was seventy.
1996: Howard on the hunt for Big-C Conservatives to stack the High Court.
30 October 2002: Heydon touts for a spot on the bench with a speech to the ratty right-wing monthly, Quadrant. It had been set up in the 1950s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. With Howard in the audience, Heydon accuses the High Court of destroying ‘the rule of law’. He opposed providing counsel for the accused in murder trials.
Howard lands a gigantic-R REACTIONARY.
December 2002: Howard unleashes Heydon as the bosses’ latest judicial attack dog on. On the bench, Heydon does everything his masters want. He interprets the ‘rule of law’ to mean that rulers can do whatever they like.
2005: He backs Howard’s WorstChoices attack on workers.
2011: He upholds NSW bikie laws.
2013: He takes the cake for the highest rate of dissent on the Court; always taking the most extreme reactionary line.
October 2013: Retires, pissed off that Howard lost in 2007 and so could not appoint him him Chief Justice.
He takes out his frustrations in a stream of abuse against his fellow right-wing judges as ‘overbearing’ and ‘The enemy within’. His picture of them as ‘utterly confident of their own ability, pretty sure that no other judge has yet grasped the key point’ is an exact self-portrait.
March 2014: heads Royal Commission into Trade Union governance and corruption.
April 2014: Sucks up to Abbott with a speech to the ultra-right think-tank, the Centre of so-called Independent Studies which is totally dependent on the big end of town. Heydon claims that criticism of Abbott’s religious prejudices is like Nazi attacks on Jews.
August 2015: Exposed delivering Liberal Party lecture in honour of Barwick who conspired with fellow U.S. spook Kerr to protect CIA assets at Pine Gap by sacking Whitlam.
June 2016: Queen’s Birthday Honours: Heydon becomes ‘Panto Dame’ Dyson for his services to the arse-licking of Liberal leaders and to the boss-class.
Question: Is Heydon’s hypocrisy and foul-mouthed arrogance huge enough for his Report to attack workers for using the f-word?
Answer: You bet.
Compiled by Humphrey McQueen
Background Abbott’s first RC
http://chriswhiteonline.org/2008/09/first-the-verdict-the-true-story-of-the-cole-commission-into-building-and-construction-workers-2003/
Dyson Heydon is condemned many times in the ‘union witch-hunt’ such as his corrupt attack on Bill Shorten.
More news comments:
Laura Tingle AFR
The most devastating headline to emerge from Bill Shorten’s appearance before the royal commission into trade unions concerned an intervention by Justice Dyson Heydon in which he suggested the Opposition Leader might be seen as an evasive witness.
Now a royal commission set up with clear political intent by the Abbott government, and which has loomed over Labor as a menace for the past two years, is itself devastated by revelations that Justice Heydon had agreed to speak at a Liberal Party fundraising function.
Read more:
http://www.afr.com/news/politics/whatever-happens-now-the-royal-commission-is-crippled-20150813-giyjmv?stb=fb
ALP says Dyson has to go
“It’s clear that as a result of the acceptance by Dyson Heydon of an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party fundraising event that he disqualifies himself as a commissioner of this royal commission.” Brendan O’Connor Shadow ALP IR
ACTU says Dyson has to go
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/unions-say-royal-commission-must-be-terminated-amid-dyson-heydon-furore-20150813-giybk1.html
And as well…the rorters.
‘The government refuses to say what Mr Heydon is being paid – and therefore what he would be giving up – for conducting the $62 million royal commission, but it could be as high as $4 million.
A spokesman for the Attorney-General George Brandis said: “It is general practice that the terms and conditions on which the Commonwealth engages royal commissioners is not disclosed.”
A guide to what Mr Heydon might be paid can be seen in the generous remuneration of several legal professionals under him in the royal commission. Senior counsel assisting the royal commission Jeremy Stoljar has been allocated a potential fee of $3.3 million out of the budgeted legal spend of $25 million – and that is excluding expenses.
As Fairfax Media has reported, others are getting less: Michael Elliott, $1.3 million; Richard Scruby, $960,000; Sarah McNaughton, $866,000; and Fiona Roughley, $831,000.’
Dyson the extreme right-wing cleric.
And from Richard Ackland
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/14/the-sometimes-enjoyable-mind-of-dyson-heydon?CMP=ema_632
Dyson Heydon: royal commissioner’s recuse decision held until Tuesday
Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon will announce his future on Tuesday after considering written claims that he is biased.
“What I’m going to do is to commence work on a consideration of this interesting and in some respects complex matter,” Mr Heydon told an extraordinary hearing in Sydney.
“I hope to complete that by Tuesday.”
Mr Heydon adjourned the hearing after seven unions, led by the ACTU, presented their submissions that Mr Heydon should stand down from his role due to “apprehended bias.”
The presentations were made at a hearing in central Sydney.
AS IT HAPPENED: Heydon decision on Tuesday
Showing no emotion, Mr Heydon conducted himself with the steady demeanour for which he is famous as the ACTU and CFMEU argued that he should recuse himself.
Their case is based on “the hypothetical fair-minded lay person.”
They claim that such a person who read that Mr Heydon had accepted — and later withdrawn from — a Liberal Party function would have come to the view that he was associated with the side of politics which was the political enemy of the side being investigated by his Royal Commission.
The CFMEU — one of the unions in which corruption has been uncovered by Mr Heydon — argued that any fair minded person would now link Mr Heydon with the Liberal Party.
Mr John Agius, SC, for the CFMEU, said: “There is a clear inference available, in our respectful submission, on the material that, Mr Commissioner, you have lent your support to the Liberal Party and that would indicate … the apprehended bias that we allege.”
Mr Heydon is likely to want to take at least until Tuesday to consider the various submissions.
There are three separate submissions from seven union groups.
The CFMEU and 34 individuals associated with it have made one submission, while the AWU — the former union of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten — has also made a separate submission.
The other groups have co-authored a submission — they are the ACTU, Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, the Health Services Union, the Transport Workers Union, Unions NSW and the Maritime Union of Australia.
It is expected that Mr Heydon may decide to return to a hearing on Tuesday morning when he will announce whether he will be recusing himself or not.
Should he decide not to recuse himself, the ACTU is almost certain to take the matter to the Federal Court.
This would put the commission into uncharted territory — it is not known whether the commission would be able to continue its public hearings with such uncertainty hanging over it.
John Lyons
RULE ONE: CAPTAIN’S PICK YOUR COMMISSIONER Dyson Heydon
RULE TWO: STUFF HIS EARS WITH MONEY $5-6,000 a day
RULE THREE: RIG HIS TERMS OF REFERENCE blind your boy to criminal bosses
See no evil in Grocon. Hear no evil of Transfield. Speak no evil of Boral.
THE CHARGE SHEET
Dyson Heydon is the most extreme right-winger ever on the High Court.
And that’s saying something given some of the reactionary swine there since 1903.
1999: He was ordered to repay $7m. for his bad legal advice to the NRMA in 1994 :
“colleagues say that Heydon, known to have a ferocious temper and a good command of a wide array of swear words, would be furious.” [SMH 14.5.99, p. 9]
How can Heydon pretend to be unbiased when he got twice as much from one job as a worker could earn in two life-times? He stands to make more out of this Commission than a construction worker could earn in lifetime of wage-slaving till he was seventy.
1996: Howard on the hunt for Big-C Conservatives to stack the High Court.
30 October 2002: Heydon touts for a spot on the bench with a speech to the ratty right-wing monthly, Quadrant. It had been set up in the 1950s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. With Howard in the audience, Heydon accuses the High Court of destroying ‘the rule of law’. He opposed providing counsel for the accused in murder trials.
Howard lands a gigantic-R REACTIONARY.
December 2002: Howard unleashes Heydon as the bosses’ latest judicial attack dog on. On the bench, Heydon does everything his masters want. He interprets the ‘rule of law’ to mean that rulers can do whatever they like.
2005: He backs Howard’s WorstChoices attack on workers.
2011: He upholds NSW bikie laws.
2013: He takes the cake for the highest rate of dissent on the Court; always taking the most extreme reactionary line.
October 2013: Retires, pissed off that Howard lost in 2007 and so could not appoint him him Chief Justice.
He takes out his frustrations in a stream of abuse against his fellow right-wing judges as ‘overbearing’ and ‘The enemy within’. His picture of them as ‘utterly confident of their own ability, pretty sure that no other judge has yet grasped the key point’ is an exact self-portrait.
March 2014: heads Royal Commission into Trade Union governance and corruption.
April 2014: Sucks up to Abbott with a speech to the ultra-right think-tank, the Centre of so-called Independent Studies which is totally dependent on the big end of town. Heydon claims that criticism of Abbott’s religious prejudices is like Nazi attacks on Jews.
August 2015: Exposed delivering Liberal Party lecture in honour of Barwick who conspired with fellow U.S. spook Kerr to protect CIA assets at Pine Gap by sacking Whitlam.
June 2016: Queen’s Birthday Honours: Heydon becomes ‘Panto Dame’ Dyson for his services to the arse-licking of Liberal leaders and to the boss-class.
Question: Is Heydon’s hypocrisy and foul-mouthed arrogance huge enough for his Report to attack workers for using the f-word? Answer: You bet.
Compiled by Humphrey McQueen August 2015