PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH AT 2
HIGH COURT PLAQUE UNVEILING,
CANBERRA, 29 SEPTEMBER ] 975
Mr Minister, Chief Justice, Your Honours, Your
Excellencies, Ladies arnd Gentlemen.
Today for the first time in Au * stralia's history
the High Court of Australia is sitting in Canberra: the
Chief Justice and all the Judges. And on a day like this
it's well to recall how-nobly they have fulfilled one of
their tenets:
Let justice be done even though it Pours,
But take good heart because on this site, one
of Australia's national capital's great buildings will arise.
There will be proper accommodation for the Supreme Court of
this country, and for all those who have business before it.
It may be difficult to envisage, in this tent today,
that the ; public hall of the High Court of Australia, on this
site, will be nearly 80 feet high I was told 24 metres higrh.
Orlas you might expect me to say, 2.4 decamnetres. We've had to
wait three quarters of a century to inaugurate the principal
seat of the High Court of Australia at the seat of Government.
Right from the beginning when the first, one of the greatest
Attorneys-Genera, first introduced the legislation for the
High Court, the Judiciary Act of 1903, it took a long time
to get that piece of legislation through; several sessions
in fact. But, in fact, it did finally get through both Houses.
And right from the outset it was laid down that the principal
geat of the High Court shall be at the seat of Government.
Now, until 1927 they both were seated in Melbourne.
And then the Goverrmient came to Canberra, and now we are
making it possible for the High Court's principal seat to
come to Canberra also.
There are four great pillars of Australia's
constitutional structure. The Constitution says, there
shall be a Federal Executive; there shall be a Federal
Parliament; there shall be a Federal Supreme Court of
Australia, known as the High Court; there shall be an
Interstate Commission. Now ' three, soon, will be
seated in Canberra. Throughout the English speaking world the High
Court of Australia is acknowledged as without superior in
the common law. The Judges who serve there are quoted
increasingly everywhere where the common law has been
inherited as it has been in Australia. I make that commnent
because it is well to recall how much of the business of tChe
High Court; how much of the business that citizens bring
before the High Court, is of the same nature as has been
transacted before English Courts for centuries.. And the
High Court of Australia has contributed to the elucidation
and the development of the common law as much as any court
in the world in this century. ./ 2
We naturally, in public life, are preoccupied
with the functions of the High Court as a Constitutional Court,
following, of course, the Supreme Court of the United StatCes,
the Supreme Court of Canada and followed, in turn, by the
Supreme Court of India, and the Constitutional Court of West
Germany. Because in Australia, as in the other Federal
Democracies in the world, it has been thought proper that
disputes, which inevitably arise, should be settled in the
rational, properly argued atmosphere of court proceedings.
Here I quote Professor-La Nauze's biography of
Deakin: to explain it, the drive which Deakin brought to his
grand design of having a High Court of Australia established
right from the beginning of our Federation. So many people
thought that it could be put off for years. But not Deakin,
because to quote La Nauze, Deakin believed that:
.1
" without the authority of the High Court the
Commonwealth would be in constant danger from the
forces of provincialism. It was not that he
expected from a High Court judgments which would
0 necessarily favour the Commonwealth at the expense
of the States. What was essential was that
disputes between them should from the earliest
years views of the Federation be examined and
finally settled by a Court, and in a mental
atmosphere, free from provincial association."
I menti'on one other Chief Justice, the present
Chief Justice. It came as no surprise to me, in the Parliament
that Sir Garfield Barwick who had already proved himself a very
great builder when he was the doyen of the profession in Australia
beca'use those of us who then practised at the Sy dney Bar would
remember, with gratitude, how much our-accommodation was improved
because he devoted himself to seeing that the profession was
adequately housed. Without him I doubt if there would have been
adequate Inns foi barristers in Sydney or in due course in
0 Melbourne or elsewhere in Australia. And the Chief Justice, of
course, had the idea that in Sydney the Australian Government
and the New South Wales Government should co-operate in
establishing new courts, so that the public would not be confused
by a dividing, and divided apparently unco-ordinated judicial
system but he has for long been working for the High Court to
be properly housed in its proper seat in Canberra, in a building
worthy of the Supreme Courts, th Constitutional Courts of
common law countries and of federal democracies.
In October 1973,. he was one of the assessors to
choose the successful architects. And on 8 October 1973 he and
I announced the winners. And I think I must say, and in this I
would be supported by the National Capital Development Commission,
and a very great number of people in the profession, as well as
in the administration, that since then Sir Garfield has been
unremitting in seeing that this building proceeded. And I don't
really believe that the plans could have been so far advanced but
for the pressure, completely proper pressure, which he has brought
to bear upon me in this way.
The building will be a noble one. It may not be as
noble as the Chief Justice might have aspired to have it. But
it's the best that the country can produce or afford and it will
be in a splendid setting, it will be a worthy home for our
Court which stands at the peak of our national judicial system.
And all of us, I believe, on this occasion should pay tribute
to those who over the decades have sought to have this court
in Canberra. And not least to the Chief Justice and the present
Justices who have spurred us to see that within not so many years
three or four the principal seat of the High Court, a noble seat,
will be at the seat of Government.