Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
~Cicero
In my home State of Victoria, we are about to have an election. And the campaign just got dirty (dare I suggest, “dirtier than a brown coal fired coal station?”) Yesterday, the Sunday Herald Sun ran the following editorial regarding Greens candidate for Melbourne, Brian Walters SC:
The Greens are the self-appointed ethicists of the democratic system; the pious moral arbiters of Australian politics.
They loudly pride themselves on being more honest, more principled, than the major parties.
But today the Sunday Herald Sun reveals that one of the Greens’ leading candidates, Brian Walters – who is in prime position to beat Labor’s Bronwyn Pike in the seat of Melbourne – spent some time as a barrister representing the interests of the very industry the Greens want to shut down.
Mr Walters was senior counsel representing a company involved in the Yallourn coal mining industry – a big focus of the Greens’ election campaign.
The Greens want the Hazelwood power station using brown coal, recognised as one of the dirtiest energy sources in the world, closed down.
Mr Walters represented Downer EDI, which owns 44 per cent of RTL – the unincorporated joint venture that operates the Yallourn open-cut brown coal mine – in a case running in the Yarra Valley Court at Morwell over the death of a union official at a mine site.
Union delegate Richard Gauci was killed in 2005 while conducting maintenance on a conveyor belt, leaving behind his wife, Debra, and three daughters.
When asked during the week about his involvement in the case, Mr Walters said: “I have acted for all sorts of people in the course of my career.”
Asked if he saw any conflict of interest, he said: “I’ve got a duty as a barrister to accept briefs in an area in which I can practise. It would be an ethical breach for me to turn it down.”
Asked if he was strongly against the coal industry, he said: “Coal is great so long as it stays in the ground. There are ways of using coal that do keep it in the ground.”
And there lies the obvious hypocrisy.
Mr Walters is right that everyone deserves a legal defence and the right to a fair trial. After all, barristers can represent murderers and rapists without condoning the crimes.
But the Greens profess to inhabit the moral and ethical high ground and therefore must be held accountable.
Mr Walters has also confirmed some private investments in Queensland that appear to derive income from the coal mining industry.
The rise of the party is illustrated by the twists and turns the Labor and Liberal parties found themselves having to perform last week as they grappled with the issue of whether they would preference the Greens.
By any measure, a Greens candidate earning money by representing brown coal is a conflict of interest.
If Mr Walters genuinely believes brown coal mining is wrong, he should not be supporting the industry’s interests anywhere.
In addition, Mr Walters has come under fire for his representation of Konrad Kalejs, alleged former Nazi war criminal, and has been accused of anti-Semitism. There has been outcry from The Age in relation to the smear, but Jewish MP Michael Danby lashed Walters as a “wuss”.
I have to confess that on this issue, I agree with Jeremy Sear – it’s an easy, but misleading smear. It’s time to do LAWS101 YET AGAIN, apparently, although I’m glad to see that many bloggers around the traps seem to understand whatever their political stripe. I have explained elsewhere:
As for the problem of representing unpleasant people – I think that’s just something that lawyers have to explain better – everyone deserves a quality representation. And it’s not for the lawyer to decide whether or not their client’s story is true or not. That’s the job of the judge or jury.
…I think every lawyer (if they are honest with themselves) has been in a situation where he or she has not been entirely comfortable with representing a client, and in fact, lawyers may have been in situations where they are very uncomfortable with instructions. I guess that I saw my job as to not only represent the client, but try and make sure that the client made appropriate and sensible arguments. But I know there are other lawyers who disagree with my point of view – I had a heated argument one day with another lawyer who insisted that it is our duty to put any argument in the strongest manner possible, no matter how repugnant it may seem, because that is what we are being paid to do.
To be a lawyer, you have to divorce yourself from your own personal instincts and morality to an extent. That’s something that “normal” people find creepy and unpleasant, hence the jokes about blood-suckers and sharks etc. But this objectivity does allow us to see both sides of the argument. And usually, there are two sides of the argument – it’s very rare that things are clear-cut.
Put yourself in a defendant’s shoes. If you hire a lawyer, do you want one who presents a half-baked defence because she thinks you’re guilty? Or do you want one who does the best job she can regardless? The fact is that lawyers are paid by clients to put the best argument forward that they can, and if they don’t feel they can do that, they shouldn’t accept the client’s money.
……[U]ltimately, I think [lawyers will] always be regarded with a little distrust because of our ability to twist words and facts, and our ability to make the indefensible defensible. People don’t like to see the foundations of their assumptions rocked like that. It’s just something we have to live with.
The job of a lawyer is to administer the law according to your client’s instructions, no matter what his or her personal gut reaction or opinion on the matter is. It’s called the cab-rank rule. SL and I have been discussing the history of the rule off-blog, and she knows rather more about it than I. It has a very, very long history, beginning with Cicero. In Cicero’s time, a counsel’s personal relationship with his client was very important. When Cicero defended his former political enemy, Gabinius, in 54BC, he had to undertake a reditus in gratium or reconciliation with Gabinius before he could represent him, but he nevertheless did so.
Another famous instance of the rule occurred in 1821 when Lord Brougham represented Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery. He said:
[A]n advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all hazards and costs to other persons, and, amongst them, to himself, is his first and only duty; and in performing this duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction which he may bring upon others. Separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, he must go on reckless of the consequences, though it should be his unhappy fate to involve his country in confusion.
Lord Brougham was willing to accuse the King of marrying a Roman Catholic (and therefore forfeiting the Crown) in order to defend his client if it proved necessary.
What is the reason for the cab rank rule? If lawyers could decide not to take on a client, then they fail to uphold the law. And that is what lawyers are there to do; it is not our job to decide in advance. We are also not the legislature, we don’t make the laws; we respect the separation of powers. If we don’t like the laws we have to apply…well, then we should go into Parliament and get a public mandate to change them…oh yeah, wait a second, that’s what Walters is actually doing…
We’ve all had to administer the law in circumstances where we may disagree with the the law, or with our client, but what kind of lawyer would I be if I could just pick and choose the laws I want to apply? Or if I just chose only clients I liked and agreed with? Again I refer to Cicero — everyone has the right to representation. My personal politics and opinions should not prevent me from representing someone. Indeed, a barrister who refuses to take on a client because he finds the client offensive may find himself in very hot water. Have a look at this case where a deeply Christian barrister refused to represent a homosexual man on the basis that the man’s “lifestyle” contradicted his personal faith. He was found guilty of professional misconduct and reprimanded.
At Iain Hall’s place, he suggested in this post that Walters should perhaps say that he was “busy” or give some kind of excuse, as the rules allowed some latitude. I’m sorry, but any barrister who did that would risk being found guilty of professional misconduct. It’s not a tactic you could risk using more than once or twice, and you particularly couldn’t risk doing it if you weren’t busy. I wouldn’t think very much of a barrister who did that, and I don’t think any other lawyers I know would either. This sort of stuff gets around among firms of solicitors, believe me.
I respect Walters more rather than less because he agreed to represent the coal industry rather than make up some bullsh*t excuse. It indicates to me that he isn’t narrow-minded and doctrinaire, and he isn’t disingenous. Even if his opinion differs from that of the person who he represents, he can see the other side of the story. I am afraid that deep Greens of my acquaintance don’t fit that paradigm – as a gross generalisation, they have a tendency to spout slogans without thinking through the consequences (like the friend who told me I’d have to give up my asthma spray because it had CFCs in it, and when I said I’d die, she replied, “That’s just the price we have to pay for a clean environment.”) The Greens need more people like Walters if they’re to become a viable party in the long term.
To me, the problem lies not in Walters’ representation of coal-fired power stations, but of the doctrinaire attitude of some greenies who resist the development of coal-fired power stations under any circumstances (see eg, here or here). It’s that kind of uncompromising attitude which has screwed Walters up. I note that the Greens’ policies are somewhat more circumspect than some of the environmental groups, although they do say at point 14, “the major refurbishment of existing coal fired power stations undermines the effort to increase end-use energy efficiency, demand management and renewable energy”. Still, I hope that the more power they get, the more the Greens will learn about compromise.
Now, I’m not that keen on the Greens. I like their social policies, as I’m generally socially libertarian. But I don’t like the self-righteous mien of some Greens, and I don’t like the internally contradictory nature of their policies. Nonetheless, I think smear campaigns such as this are really wrong, and show a fundamental misunderstanding about what a lawyer’s job is. It’s clear I’m not alone. Blogs as varied as Catallaxy, Larvatus Prodeo and The Australian Professional Liability Blog all understand the importance of this basic legal principle, and have all spoken out against this particular campaign. I’d say that this particular tactic might backfire badly.
84 Comments
Quite. As soon as I heard the attack, I thought “you are accusing him of being a barrister”. Robert Menzies represented the BLF: apparently he won every case he appeared for them in. Nothing about his ideology, or ideological consistency, can be construed from that except that, apparently, he was a conscientious and effective barrister.
It is a sign of how worried the ALP is.
(As are their ads on Joy FM spruiking their queer friendly credentials.)
I’m not buying it, LE. Not for a second. There’s no earthly reason he was compelled to take the case and could have refused on conscientious grounds or simply fibbed that he was too busy at the time.
He shouldn’t be let off the hook that easy because that despicable party has done enough to impugn the motives of others to the point where if your grandfather worked in the coal mine they would use that to savage you.
How many times has Brown and the intellectual lioness of the senate Christine (new technology) mine attacked people accusing them that they were in the “pockets of the big polluters” or if you smoked a cig in your youth they would use that to suggest you’re in bed with big tobacco.
It’s about freaking time labor began to understand the danger they have on their extreme left and showed a little more courage than they with these political reprobates.
And as for Sear finding an excuse. Fair dinkum if Charles Manson voted Greens Sear would have a nice word or two to day about him too.
As for their social libertarianism that you mention…. It’s all bullshit. Nothing they say can ever be trusted for the moment. Let’s recall that Brown and New technology Milne were ecstatic when Happy Hamilton ran under their ticket in the seat of Higgins by-election. And if there’s anyone more censuring than Happy Hamilton on the hard left I’d like to know.
They shouldn’t be allowed off the hook so easily.
Lorenzo:
If Menzies was doing that then he was just as big a hypocrite as these reprobates.
JC, everything you say about the Greens may be true. I wasn’t too pleased with the way lots of them carried on about LE’s climate change post. That, however, is not the issue here.
Dodging around the cab-rank rule is a bloody sight harder than it looks, however, and I think I have to say I think people’s inability to grasp this is borne of a failure to grasp the basic truth that people can be objective, neutral and fair, even when it comes to things with which they disagree. Read Stephen Warne’s piece (linked in LE’s post).
Ideas of objectivity and reasonableness (the core of the rule of law) have been assailed from everywhere in recent years, and now even people who aren’t into postmodernist piffle don’t seem to appreciate how — with a modicum of effort — it is possible for a Liberal to represent a militant trade union, a Tory to represent a Whig (Cicero’s case) or a Green to represent ‘big coal’.
I’ll put the boot on the other foot for you.
Right now, I’m doing some work for the Procurator Fiscal (the Scottish Crown Prosecution Service). Among other things, this includes pursuing drug offences. As you all know, I’m a libertarian on this point. I think that drugs should be legalised. I think the ‘War on Drugs’ is a giant furphy.
But I still prosecute, for the simple reason that I don’t make the laws, the Scottish Parliament does.
It’s called the separation of powers.
SL
The problem isn’t about people in private lives going about doing things they may disagree with such as in the example you gave about your circumstances. I find no problem with that whatsoever.
The greens are different. They have never ever shown a modicum of an interest in applying those reasonable standards.
You wouldn’t for instance be going around attacking drug users as being the pits of the earth in the same way these reprobate clowns say attack coal mining company executives, calling them the equivalent of drug pushers and thieves.
They deserve to be measured by their own hypocritical standards in the way they have attacked others for even the most indirect associations.
They deserve no respect and to be treated with no sense of decency, as they never use it themselves. Fuck them.
I’m actually inclined to vote Labor in this election for the simple reason that the Premier is actually to the right of the current mentally retarded liberal opposition leader.
It’s good to see Labor or at least one senior state minister standing up to these economic vandals.
I very much appreciate the value of a system that ensures that everyone has a chance to have the best possible representation. I can even appreciate the virtues of the existing system. I wrote my post and mounted the argument that Sear was gilding the lily about the professional obligation not to ever refuse a Brief when the rules very clearly do allow some small measure of latitude. I suspect that for many barristers it’s rather like playing a game of chess and it does not matter if they play black or white. As you suggest LE finding an excuse within the rules to decline a brief is not something that any barrister would do lightly or often but it is possible on occasion.
As for the Greens candidate in question I think nothing less of the man because of the cases that he has taken in his professional capacity. JC does have a point about Sear’s rather boring desire to defend every loony tune sung by every Greens supporter, it is one of the things that makes “Pure Poison” such a risible blog site.
JC I wouldn’t want to live in a society where such emotion, and such mixing of legal process with political was the norm. It would be a society where each person was his own judge, jury and executioner. The first decision taken might suit you, but what about the next – where your interests of the moment were on the wrong side of the emotion, or the politics? But I do agree it would be helpful sometimes to find a cabbie who adhered to the rule – whatever his politics.
“How many times has Brown and the intellectual lioness of the senate Christine (new technology) mine attacked people accusing them that they were in the “pockets of the big polluters” or if you smoked a cig in your youth they would use that to suggest you’re in bed with big tobacco.”
Simply not true.
The Greens argue that the government should move away from permitting the running of heavily-polluting coal power stations.
They have never argued that those companies should not have the same rights before the law as anyone else – which is all that Walters will have argued as this particular company’s barrister.
They may well criticise parties that receive large donations from such companies and then advocate and vote for legislation on their behalf as opposed to on their constituents’ behalf. Of course it’s relevant to a person’s credibility if they’re clearly getting some reward for pushing for particular laws. Of course their constituents should realise that these representatives might not be acting entirely on their behalf.
But how does that contradict Walters acting in accordance with a long-standing and very necessary legal principle, that the law should be applied consistently regardless of who the parties are?
Answer: it doesn’t.
JC admits the level of his critique, anyway:
“They deserve no respect and to be treated with no sense of decency, as they never use it themselves. Fuck them.”
Yup, JC doesn’t care if his argument is stupid or unfair. He just hates the Greens and will say anything if he thinks it hurts them.
(It’s ultimately very circular logic: the Greens are bad so it doesn’t matter how honest or fair or correct is this argument I’m making about why they’re bad.)
“I wrote my post and mounted the argument that Sear was gilding the lily about the professional obligation not toever refuse a Brief “
Of course, I never said that, which kind of makes Hall’s post as irrelevant and stupid as usual from the very beginning.
Jeremy, the cab rank principle is something that pushes our buttons – perhaps it’s because most of us have been accused of being hypocritical because of who we represented at some point? Yeah, I’m an equity/restitution lawyer who’s into justice and flexibility, but I used to repossess houses, and I’d often talk to the defendants. I’d tell them, “Don’t be mislead by my sympathetic manner. I will proceed through to repossession if the Bank tells me to, because I follow my instructions right to the bitter end if need be.” I’d then add that this was why they needed to do something and shake off the rabbit-in-the-headlights reaction which is so common in those cases.
Still, I don’t think I’d be too harsh on non-lawyers for having difficulty understanding why a lawyer might be so passionate about the the cab-rank rule. This article in The Times has some interesting comments on the cab rank rule there which suggests that the process of dodging briefs is not so far fetched:
I think the thing which made me really annoyed about the attack on Walters is that he is a well-known civil libertarian who would make a special point of adhering to the cab rank rule out of fairness – everyone’s legal rights deserve recognition – and he wouldn’t try and dodge around it in some disingenous manner.
LE, what would have been wrong with Walters declining the brief on the grounds that, as he was also engaged in running for parliament at the next State election as the endorsed Greens candidate in a very winnable & hotly contested seat, if he accepted the brief it might be perceived in public forums as a conflict of interests and cause a shit storm that would come back to bite him on the bum, thereby seriously threatening his other professional pursuits?
It’s honest and, as events turned out, entirely self evident.
Ray, the case of the barrister who rejected the brief because homosexuality was against his religious principles shows what would have happened to Walters if he’d told the company he couldn’t act for it because of his political interests. He’d be up for professional misconduct.
I think it’s also important to remember that if any barristers can bend the cab-rank rule, it is the wealthiest and most successful QCs — people like Walters. The rest of us can’t (for the reasons, both formal and informal, LE outlines in her post). I don’t think we have any QCs who comment regularly on this blog, and the people who are barristers/advocates (including me) around here simply cannot flick away work. In the past I’ve avoided family briefs on the grounds that I hadn’t studied it, but that’s not permitted in Scotland, so part of my Scots law conversion course involves passing quite an intricate course in family law.
That Walters hasn’t used the fact that he’s a silk to buy himself wriggle room enhances my view of him, to be honest.
Cab rank? Shmab rank. The Melbourne legal mafia are out in force. If I hear or read another lawyer in the Melbourne media say they must take every brief that is put before them I will, well, I will take advice.
LE, I don’t see any correlation between the case you cite and Walters’ predicament. That one is based on personal beliefs and nothing else, whereas Walters had genuine grounds to say that accepting the case would
“seriously threaten his other professional pursuits”. And it did.
And his decision to run for parliament was not just a political “interest”, it was a carefully chosen alternative professional career path. The man was planning to exit the legal profession and enter politics. Ergo he had valid grounds for turning it down.
a) Has anyone considered the possibility that he might have needed the money? Barristers can have hefty overheads.
b) We seem to be conflating two issues: conduct of the greens and the cab-rank rule. Can we stick to one issue at a time?
c) I have a lot of friends who are members of the greens and they are perfectly sane, intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate individuals. You may be confusing “greens” with “greenies”. It all depends who you talk to.
d) What on earth is wrong with opposing coal-fired power stations?????
This effort by the Vic ALP is yet another on the long list of reasons why they do not deserve to be in government. If they were clean and open, their incompetence might not matter so much and vice versa, and they probably wouldn’t have to stoop so low.
And yes, I /do/ think Brumby is de facto to the right of Ballieu, has more dubious deals with /particular/ businesses than Kennett ever did.
I wonder if they’d stoop to using slurs based on representing someone accused of sexual offences.
So my righty friends will have the fun of knowing a founding member of student labor at Deakin, sometime who’ll put any socialist candidate on the ticket at number 1, but preference Libs before Labor for the first time in my life.
There’s at least a chance someone in the Libs knows how to run a straight tender process and manage a contract tightly. No-one in this Brumby government does.
SL@3 Yes, quite. Hence “pomo conservatism”: folk who do not understand the traditions they are allegedly conserving.
I find the passion on this thread fascinating: both the way the self-righteousness of the Greens really annoys folk and that lawyers as providers of a service for all–not simply those they approve of–seems to be problematic for folk.
Speaking as gay man, the cab rank rule looks fine to me. And the ALP attack may be a bit cleverer than I thought (but no morally better).
Lorenzo, am I right in guessing there may be a post brewing at your end? If so, do let us know.
Just on the gulf between lawyers and the rest of civilisation: one of my pupilmaster’s lines (when he was feeling especially down in the dumps) went as follows –
‘When it comes to an accused paedophile, sometimes I think that the only people who believe in the presumption of innocence are lawyers’.
It’s good to be reminded of that gulf, sometimes.
SL@19: There is probably a list, changing over time, where the presumption of innocence disappears and the lawyers representing the accused get canned.
I wonder if there is a subtle difference (if only how hard a censure professional associations might apply to a given amount of wiggling) as to how the cab rank rule applies between a person accused by the state, and a dispute between two private parties, or if it’s a party wanting to initiate a suit rather than someone needing help with an action initiated against them.
Well I for one hate the greens more than most, but I admire Walters for taking the case.
The need for the cab rank rule becomes easily apparent if you recall JS Mill’s comments on the power of social mores and exclusion, which is why Lorenzo says that as a gay man it sounds fine to him.
This is at its starkest in criminal law, but the principles and consequences are the same everywhere.
Lorenzo@18 said “Speaking as gay man, the cab rank rule looks fine to me.”
Ummm, if that statement is not in the same class as “speaking as a person with brown hair…” then I’m horrified. Has it ever made a difference to anyone as far as getting representation goes? Surely not in the last century or so?
Perhaps the nutters attacking lawyers for obeying the cab rank rule would also accuse of terrorism those US army lawyers acting in the interests of the Gitmo inmates!
Umm, Dave, follow the Daily Mail link in the post for someone refused representation on the basis of being gay. And the lawyers who defended Gitmo people have sometimes been accused of gross moral turpitude, if not terrorism.
And Patrick’s Mill point is a good one. Here is the relevant quotation from On Liberty:
Anyone who thinks that communitarian pressure has no effect on people makes baby John von Neumann cry.
Isn’t invoking the ‘cab rank rule’ just a tad precious? My impression – and I’m not a lawyer, but some of my best friends are
– is that barristers (particularly senior ones like Walters) have long-standing relationships with certain solicitors, and a reputation for focusing on particular areas of law, and usually – though by no means always – for either plaintiff/Crown or defendant/accused.
If Walters was offered this very lucrative case, it would be because he has an established reputation in negligence appellate work and vicarious liability issues in employment law. That is, he has more than likely accepted many briefs in his career representing the bosses, and equally clients who would be less than kosher among Green ideologues.
I’d say this explains Walters’ situation more than any noble acquiescence to the ‘cab rank rule’.
sl: hadn’t gone into the dailmail thing long enough to realize the guy was seeking to prevent a state restricting a reasonable right, something making a huge difference to that persons’s life. That’s no different to a vegetarian lawyer refusing to represent a pie manufacturer applying for a license to manufacture food.
In defence of The Greens, they have never presented themselves as anarchists. They have always expressed sincere commitment to the rule of law. Indeed, one of their refrains is outrage at those – especially governments – who are [allegedly] less than so committed.
And on the neo-Nazi angle. Rabid Zionist Alan Dershowitz prides himself on representing neo-Nazis. For Free!
Yes it is. You’re either willfully blind or just covering up for them. There’s been numerous times when they’ve accused people in the private sector of dishonesty and deceitfulness. You should apologize to everyone here, Sear for your own in suggesting that’s not true.
In addition to the Greens arguing that anyone who disagrees with them on this point is dishonest, doing the bidding for the “ big polluters” or “living in the age of stupid” as the senate’s Einstein, Christine Milne said. This moron is trying to suggest we could energize an industrial civilization with propellers on sticks and plastic panels sitting on a roof and if people disagree they must be stupid or dishonest. The chutzpah of this moronic clown suggesting those things is jaw dropping funny.
Bullshit. They would demonize/terorize them with laws if they had the chance. Who are you trying to fool Sear? They would run them out of business in a week and leave us in darkness given the chance. They are the most misanthropic grouping that’s ever existed in this country.
Are you even of average IQ, Jeremy? Do you think that the IPA or the CIS say would have differing opinions if they weren’t funded? Seriously.
Would Happy Hamilton have been more pro-commerce and less of a leftwing ratbag when he was at the Australia Institute if he didn’t receive funding from leftwing groups?
You’re amazingly deluded or simply dishonest.
And your evidence is what exactly? And how does that apply to the renewable industry (the subsidy whores) and the Greens and the Greens/union funding in terms of doing their bidding. The Unions are doing the Green’s bidding and funding them because they are well aware the large amounts of labour required to service the subsidy whores.
I admit what, Sear? I admit that I intensely dislike the Greens and every political breath they take. I also said that they should be measured by their own standards. If Walters wanted to refuse the brief he could have easily, so don’t try that game here as not not going to fool anyone.
(
No it’s not cicular logic to say we should simply apply their standards when measuring them. We should because that’s how all hypocrites are discovered. One set of standards for others and another set for them. That’s not circular logic.
Why don’t you leave your arguments with Hall for other blogs instead of bringing them here? Hall makes good points so see if you account for those instead of personal animus.
I disagree. They hate china because it’s industrializing and they hate India for the same reasons.
They like dirt poor people because they think they’re not emitting.
Look the ran Hamilton in Higgins. they don’t give a shit about human rights and that sort of thing otherwise they wouldn’t have run Happy nor gone with the commie woman in NSW.
There’s not a thing that honest about them.
LE – I agree that if you take a clients money you have a duty to represent them and I have no fundamental problem with somebody being against coal mining but representing coal miners in court.
However I disagree with the notion that lawyers have a duty to uphold the law. If you know your client is guilty your job is still to help them win the case. This isn’t upholding the law. In fact it’s subverting the law. It may uphold some adversarial tradition of justice but not the law.
There is also a question of morality. If someone accused of violent rape wants you to help get them aquitted and you know they are guilty then how you proceed might be different to how you proceed if you were representing someone accused of being a drug user that you knew to be guilty. Your duty to provide the client with what they are paying you for needs to be weighed against moral considerations. Nobody can purge themselves of moral considerations by simply saying they were just doing their job.
Terje, I agree with you there – and that’s why one of the jobs a lawyer has is talking a client down from an unrealistic position (eg, refusing to plead guilty when there is an abundance of evidence against him). But say a client swears black and blue he didn’t do a violent rape, even though there might be evidence to indicate that he did…you have to behave as if he is telling the truth, even if you’re personally not sure. I’m not saying it’s easy though. It’s one of the reasons I personally don’t touch criminal law with a barge pole. And I do think you have a duty to rein in more whacky clients from taking stupid positions.
LE – let’s say that the evidence of a violent rape is strong (fuzzy video footage of many in mask attacking a woman perhaps) but the evidence that this particular guy is the perpetrator is very weak (a witness claims to have seen him in the general area). In private the client gives you the equivalent of a sly wink to say you know I did this crime am I’m quite proud of it. Perhaps he gives you an OJ Simpson style account of how he would have commited the crime. Do you use your talent, honor your duty to him as client and recommend that he plead innocent?
“Many in mask” should be “man in mask”
LE says:
“Now, I’m not that keen on the Greens. I like their social policies, as I’m generally socially libertarian. But I don’t like the self-righteous mien of some Greens, and I don’t like the internally contradictory nature of their policies. ”
What internal contradictions?
And are these contradictions worse than those of other parties? Aren’t all parties, not to mention individuals (if we are honest) full of internal contradictions?
Here is a nice Liberal Party example- the first of their core beliefs, according to their website, is this:
“We believe In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives; and maximises individual and private sector initiative ”
http://www.liberal.org.au/The-Party/Our-Beliefs.aspx
Yet the last LIb federal government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act and introduced the Northern Territory intervention regarding Aboriginals. The Libs even wanted to subject Northern Territory Aboriginal kids to compulsory intrusive genital examinations to determine if they had been sexually abused. The only reason this didn’t occur is because doctors refused to do participate on ethical grounds.
Do you have more confronting examples of Green contradictions?
Maybe she isn’t that keen on the Liberals either.
If that’s your best example mel that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. I reckon you could find a lot of advocates of individual rights who, at least in private, would admit that the Intervention was more than justified.
“I reckon you could find a lot of advocates of individual rights who, at least in private, would admit that the Intervention was more than justified.”
That’s confirms what I said, genius.
Many LIbertarian/Conservative types have no problem with trumpeting “inalienable rights and freedoms” in one breath while nodding their heads in furious agreement with a program of forced anal, vaginal and penile probes for children selected through racial profiling.
I wonder what Freud would’ve thought?
Yes dreadful people those”Deep Greens”.
I’d never wonder why governments and ombudspersons and developers seem so interested in not releasing, or injunctioning, or other wise suppressing info about what later turns put to be big scale developments that leave an ecological mess and a bill for the taxpayers to sort out later.
Post election, in SA, a sudden rash of big scale real estate developments have been released (without prior consultation with communities, because of legal changes favouring developers. And of course if some sort of EPA or the like actually gets out and people see how destructive an obscured proposal might be for a community, it will be moved to “special status” to remove councils from being able to subject proposals to closer scrutiny or block them. Funny that.
If all these proposals are such panaceas for communities, why the suppression and removal of rights of scrutiny and appeal and transparency? Does it go back to AUSFTA and neolib dogma, that proposes that foreign or outside capital has priority over the interests of communities and individuals in those communities, as to projects?
Where’s the democracy?
Contradictions Mel?
Their entire, not one part, but their entire economic policy manifesto is a dog’s breakfast of contradictions and platitudinous swill.
Grreens Stupidity Example. Here’s a start.
They want to end the production of nuclear medical materials produced at Lucas heights and then import the very same products they wish to ban. Smart move mergatroids.
Previously they wanted to stop nuclear medicine but hid this policy as they were getting too much heat.
They want to fund non-science based alternative medicine. Senator Christine Einstein-Milne talks about all “dese” new technologies that will power us up. There isn’t any other than the two subsidy whores.
These people are intellectual vandals. They’re nuts.
Terje@35: That’s very good. A gold star for you
JC and Mel: Remember you have to wear your tuxes in here. Just sayin.
Yes dreadful people those”Deep Greens”.
Agree Paul. Great point.
I’d never wonder why governments and ombudspersons and developers seem so interested in not releasing, or injunctioning, or other wise suppressing info about what later turns put to be big scale developments that leave an ecological mess later and a bill for the taxpayers to sort out later.
Umm Paul, there are developer fees and all sorts of taxes paid to undergird housing development, so much so that 45% of a housing estate house and land package is made up of taxes. How much more do you want to make housing unaffordable in this country seeing we now have the most expensive real estate in the world due to severe shortages of supply? Any bright ideas there champ?
Post election, in SA, a sudden rash of big scale real estate developments have been released (without prior consultation with communities, because of legal changes favouring developers.
If it’s not the hated coalmine executives it’s the developers or some other group, right? You people really hate everything don’t you? Here’s a thought, go live in a fucking cave for a while and report back and tell us what it’s like.
And of course if some sort of EPA or the like actually gets out and people see how destructive an obscured proposal might be for a community, it will moved to “special status” to remove councils from being able to subject proposals to closer scrutiny or block them.
You mean it’s taken away from NIMBYS. Good idea.
Funny that.
Hilarious.
If all these proposals are such panaceas for communities, why the suppression and removal of rights of scrutiny and appeal and transparency.?
Perhaps because the governments (labor) realize that intellectual vandals like the Greens will make cheap political hay out of it and then put political pressure on people to stop building new homes used to quench supply and they also realize that 45% of the cost of a new home going on taxes is about the most they can rifle off the hard working new homer owner.
Does it go back to AUSFTA and neolib dogma, that proposes that foreign or outside capital has priority to the interest of communities and individuals in those communities, as to projects?
No Paulsie. The dogma we see is from half-baked know-nothings pretending they know shit when they don’t and acting destructively… Like the gangrenes..
Where’s the democracy?
We just voted genius. Democracy means we vote of political parties or individuals to go to parliament and represent our interests. It does NOT mean you or any of your ilk have a fucking right to interfere with people’s property rights and fuck things up more than you have or are trying to do.
Sorry SL.
I’m wearing the tux but I’m not wearing the patents, so I’ll go get them and put them on especially after my reply to PaulW.
Gee thanx, for the considered response, JC.
Welcome to Pinochet’s Chile.
I’m quite happy to buy you a one-way ticket to North Korea with $63 of spending money if you promise to live there for 2 years and tell is what it’s like. All you need is 63 bucks because I couldn’t imagine you’d need more there seeing food etc. is hard to come by in that workers’ paradise of yours Paulie.
I’ve been to Chile. Nice place, also happens to the per cap wealthiest nation in that pot hole of a land mass and also has the largest collection of middle class people. I’m sure you wouldn’t be too happy there, Griswald as there isn’t enough poor people to feel sorry for…. from a distance of course.
I didn’t think you’d have anything of substance in reply. So I’m not shocked by the nonsensical comment.
There is a not dissimilar problem for doctors. I remember some years ago when Martin Bryant (the Port Arthur mass-murderer) was treated by doctors after he was severely burned during his capture process. My partner said the doctors ought to have let him die from his burns. I was unable to convince my partner (I am a doctor) that no matter what the alleged misdeeds of a patient, the ethical duty of a doctor is to maintain life and relieve suffering.
Please be nice everyone.
Mel, my main problem with the Greens is this: environmental concerns seem to trump everything else. And I just don’t regard the environment as a total trump – I want to make sure the environment is conserved, sure, but I also want to make sure that society keeps chugging along nicely, which means some compromises. Further I see the Greens’ economic policies as not being in keeping with their social policies. You need economic development if you want to keep people being nice to minorities etc – it’s when people are poor that they start getting the boot in. Of course, there’s always a balance between economic prosperity and environmental stuff, but if you totally fuck up the economic stuff, all those nice touchy feely social and environmental things will go down the drain, because it’s only when we have prosperity that we have the luxury of thinking of these things. And no, I don’t advocate prosperity before all else either, nor do I think the market is best in all things. It is a BALANCE. You have to keep various aims in mind at once, and balance them as best you can.
There are degrees Douglas. I would hardly think knocking back a brief from a coal mine whose executives you think are on par with mass murderers and saving a life. Are you say for the death penalty or not?
If you’re not, then the decision to help the murderous loon fell within your bounds of moral code. If you are like me, personally I would have been too sick to attend to him because I would have feared I’d personally pull the plug on the loon.
Um, the first thing in medicine (and this goes back to antiquity) is ‘primum non nocere’.
‘First, do no harm’.
If a doctor starts picking and choosing who he’ll treat in what seem to be clear cut cases (like Bryant), it isn’t long before people are being allowed to die because they piddled off the government or because they’re actually ‘mentally ill’. This was a standard Soviet trick, back when they used to lock dissidents up in the nuthatch.
Miss Candy @ 15(d) – there is a problem with banning coal fired power stations if there is no workable alternative. Now, everyone goes on about solar power and wind power etc etc, but the problem is that the generation of this power is essentially at the whim of nature. And presently, there is no way of storing excess power generated by environmentally friendly technology. So there are giant bursts of power on the network at inconvenient times which are not predictable and not necessarily useful. My understanding is that by contrast, when we have coal generated power we can ramp up production when people need it most, and turn it down when people don’t need it. We need to utilise fuel cell technology to save up power because I don’t think solar or wind is going to be workable in the long term. Thus, I get very worried when I hear people shouting “Ban coal fired power stations” – do they have a workable alternative? Are they aware of the problems with environmentally friendly power sources?
And LE.
The rotten little secret about all this is that we have an absolute advantage with coal. Not a comparative advantage but an absolute one. Brown coal is not a traded commodity internationally. We’re freaking really lucky to have it as it basically free. Gratis.
Moving to gas is hugely problematic. Gas is in demand around the world and carries an international price, which will then have to pay for our energy production.
Introduce gas, which is 50% CO2 of coal, stick a carbon tax on it too and we straight away go from a cheap source of energy possibly the cheapest in the world on such a large scale and quantity to grappling around competing in a energy hungry world for the gas on price.
Our power bills will literally sky rocket.
I honestly don’t understand the sheer enthusiasm of walking over this cliff. Perhaps we should when others do, but lets show a little remorse rather than singing and dancing over the precipice.
A different perspective, slightly out side this square,
I have no issue with barristers standing or winning seats to represent themselves as independents or their political parties, and do not fear their ability, in this case representing the greens. Vote for me election promises which involve others private property is my concern, when these elected and then so called accountable, prescribe through policy to redistribute others hard earned asset, to benefit themselves politically. And those same representatives, will be prosecuting their parties convictions and policies, whether they are right, wrong or just plain down right crazy or just public theft of the private enterprise.
My on going beef with these so called political greens is their policy for taking, stealing by stealth, private property, supported by the redistributive, must keep dumping down, when running out of ideas or real effort, where the labor party, to gain the numbers, in this instance, under the guise of saving the koalas in Queensland, for their, not so pure environmental planning policies.
And all along, they knew particular private property could never sustain or ever be environmentally sustainable, but campaigned and forced the weak supplicants within state and local councils to comply with their desires. Deals to just stay relevant. And where green labor continues their dumping, trans locating, (but never on their mates property) these poor starving little buggers, and these little critters continue starving via malnutrition or simply get run over trying to find something nutritious to eat, to survive on and stay alive. And the state will be dumping another 30, probably some with babies on their backs as the small ones don’t count. 15 years ago csiro quality research was presented which very politely suggested that depending on the natural soil fertility and nutrient levels that these animals would not survive in certain areas, but these apostles of good intention deny and ignore the plain facts. Restricting development because there are trees there, so the koalas must be their too, and so their university core co conspirators continue milking the taxpayer to benefit, forever, where doing research on what is needed to produce policies based on fundamental facts is not on, as this line of enquiry would highlight the waste of previous funding avenues and highlight corruption of the science if ever memory played a part. Save the planet and encumber the private owner with unworkable solutions. The truth gets buried under policies again. Now my family have done the right thing over 33 years, before the greens came along to improve their lot to deliver what is desired, balance. Now this is not a solicitation, or scream for pro bono support, I am just detailing my families war with these corrupt in a statement of facts and my determination not to give in to these miscreants who destroy others private property values for their own private shellfish benefits. Yes theirs, as theirs is not for the public good but only self-interest for the position and assuredly, the money, (and that’s on tape). And don’t ask me for a copy. Addendum: In 1993, a properly made application was made, which is ongoing through obfuscation, to deliver through a whole of government consultation process the whole set of desired outcomes, it is quiet simple, not a multi function polis extravaganza of spin but, a simple, sustainable mix of housing types including affordable and social which are not placed in isolation or clustered, a new development where good practical policy outcomes are yet to be delivered via an applicant who wants to do deliver what people really want.
LE@49 You arent right about power generation from coal being able to ramp up and down. Each coal fired plant has an optimum rate of burn. This produces what we call base load power. Its cheap and constant. The additional load thats required through the day at various times is called peak. This is dearer to produce. Peak loads are best generated by gas and hydro. Gas doesnt take too long to fire up from idle to maximum generation. The best peak load is hydro; no waste at idle or stop and can go from nothing to flat out in only a few minutes. Intermittent production from solar and wind is expensive and very hard to balance against, usually by gas.
Use of gas turbines for base load is stupid. Its dear and its like having a Ferrari to take 3 kids to and from school every day.
There’s two types of efficiencies Henry. Engineering and economic efficiency. If something is more efficient engineering wise it does not automatically translate it’s also efficient economically.
Gas peak would be very expensive compared to coal.
And the more renewables they throw onto the grid the more unstable it becomes.
This entire exercise is potentially going to be a trip to hell.
LE,
Here is economics Professor John Quiggin on Greens economic pollicy:
“The Greens economic policy is, quite simply, the most coherent and intellectually-defensible document of its kind ever put forward by an Ausralian political party. At the level of broad principles, it begins with the recognition that economic policy must be financially, as well as environmentally and socially, sustainable. Far from seeking cheap popularity by arguing for both tax cuts and increased public expenditure, the Greens have insisted that public sector debt should be matched by adequate capacity to service debt, and that dubious financial expedients like the use of privatisation to reduce measured debt should be avoided. ”
http://www.johnquiggin.com/archives/001818.html
LE says:
“My understanding is that by contrast, when we have coal generated power we can ramp up production when people need it most, and turn it down when people don’t need it.”
Your understanding is hilariously wrong. It is very difficult to ramp up and down coal fired power stations, hence we have very cheap off peak power etc.. and business like aluminum smelters running at night to take adavntage of cheap electricty.
“.. it’s when people are poor that they start getting the boot in..”
But your very own let’s do nothing approach to AGW is premised on shafting the poor. A platoon of economists and scientists have shown that addressing AGW will have a negligible impact on economic growth, will cost much less than the Iraq War and that unless we do it, the poor are likely to die in their droves. Even the “Skeptical Environmentalist” himself, Lomborg, now accepts this. See here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-change-u-turn
PLs release comment from moderation. Ta.
Arguing about the Greens does not seem to be getting us very far. (Admittedly, I have already posted my analysis on why political correctness and environmentalism appeal so strongly to the same type of folk.) It is better to discuss particular policies.
Such as Victorians indeed being very fortunate for all that brown coal which has so little alternate use, as JC@50 points out and makes excellent base load power, as HR@51 points out.
DC@45 The doctor example is an excellent one.
On legal representation, the decision mechanism is the court. For the decision mechanism to work properly, people need representation. The process of getting them representation should not pre-empt the decision mechanism of the court because that would make whether or not they get representation to a significant degree the effective decision mechanism, thereby subverting the role of the court.
After all, one of the basic complaints about the court system is the expense, which advantages those with deep pockets for precisely that reason. (Though much of the expense is due to the state as monopoly provider under-supplying adjudication services: the number of judges/magistrates per x people was actually much higher in the medieval period, when court systems generally ran at a profit and there were, in effect, competing systems.)
PP@24 That barristers develop expertise I don’t think makes as much of a difference. That is about who the brief gets offered to, not whether the barrister has the right to turn it down. If you like, which cab rank they are on, not whether there is a cab rank.
Even if the lawyer in question developed his expertise after becoming politically active, it is not clear to me that would determine which side of such cases we would tend to represent, since any such expertise would apply in both directions (so to speak).
SL@19: I am not planning to post on this, but, if I do, I will let you know.
DB@22: Your civilised naivete is touching but, alas, a sweet illusion.
That should read “they would represent”.
M@53 Anything with more than one link gets place in moderation: one just gets used to it.
LE says:
“I don’t think solar or wind is going to be workable in the long term.”
Again this is almost hysterically wrong and I note it comes just days after Google announces it will be investing in a $5 billion off shore wind farm in the US: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/google-invests-5-billion-350-mile-wind-power-backbone-east-coast.php
Even hard-headed China is investing in huge off shore windpower projects and Europe is on target to get 1/5th of its power from offshore windfarms by 2030: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/09/china-beats-u-s-offshore-wind-europe-trounces-everyone-solar-power.php
Lorenzo says:
“Such as Victorians indeed being very fortunate for all that brown coal which has so little alternate use …”
Sigh. It is exceedingly well known that brown coal can be employed efficaciously as a fertiliser.
I’m beginning to get bored by the the general lack of even elementary environmental knowledge on this site, guys. This is one of the reasons why I stopped commenting on this site for about six months earlier this year. Willful ignorance is simply boring. http://www.latrobefertilisers.com.au/project_latrobe.html
Mel,
This sounds like its purely a transmission service. Google aren’t investing in the wind turbines at all.
Regards,
Frank
What exactly are the subsidies that go with that and why is Google, a web based firm investing money completely out of its ambit?
Did you read the link you posted Mel? It says Google energy is seeding it with an initial investment of $200 million that could eventually turn into 37% of a $5 billion project. It’s hardly $5 billion as you suggested. and for a firm earning $7 billion it’s a drop in the ocean.
Umm yes and they also have 62 nuclear reactors panned by 2030, which is the best peak load and base load system that can respond to the wind dying off and a cloudy day.
China is also building a coal fired plant per week.
But hey, if the subsidy urchins are so good let them exist without subsidies. Right?
No it’s not, it’s experimental and like most things it may succeed or fail.
But so what. If brown coal can be eventually used as a fertilizer what has that exactly got to do with the price of electricity.
Dos that mean we’re seeing here around April? Mel , have a great Xmas and a good new years. See you then, then.
M@59 And I am sure brown coal can be used as land fill too, if you make sure it’s wet and doesn’t spontaneously combust. I seriously doubt brown coal’s value as fertiliser is anywhere near as great as its value as energy source since, if it were, then the coal miners would sell it as fertiliser: they’re in it for the profit, after all.
The thing about brown coal is that it is very difficult to ship significant distances in quantity (it has this tendency to combust) so, unlike black coal, the local users are not competing on the global market with alternative buyers. Hence the low price.
If you are going to get all snooty, some elementary commercial and economic understanding would be helpful.
I am familiar with what I call “the Catholic mode of reasoning”, where the conclusion gets to determine the ambit of its premises. Their self-righteousness when they wield it is not endearing either.
Most sensible comment here, if one gets it right is modest 49.
For the rest of you, get your minds above your wallets.
Mel, onya for fighting the good fight.
It’s not really a fight as such Paul. It’s just a discussion that seems to have gone a little wayward but worthwhile all the same.
It’s not even tribal as you seem to allude to with your poor imitation of a Collingwood supporter.
I’m looking to see if I’m wrong on anything I’ve said, but it doesn’t appear so although if I am I would be happy to admit it.
Falso, Lorenzo.
Currently brown coal energy use is effectively subsidised as it does not pay for all its externalities like health costs associated with air pollution. According to one Canadian study:
“The study found a relationship between increased air pollution due to coal-fired electricity generation and up to 668 premature deaths, 928 hospital admissions, 1,100 emergency room visits and 333,660 minor illnesses such as headaches, coughing and other respiratory symptoms, per year.
The study compared the financial, health and environmental costs of four different scenarios of electricity generation in Ontario. With an annual cost of $4.4 billion, coal-fired electricity generation is significantly more expensive than the other options considered, the study found. ”
http://www.grist.org/article/the-health-externalities-of-coal
Then we have the costs associated with AGW, which need to be factored in via a carbon tax or emissions trading.
If brown coal externalities were properly factored into costs, brown coal would be used more as a fertiliser. Also note that fertiliser costs have been rising rapidly, so this alternative use for brown coal becomes more attractive with each passing year.
Mel:
I think you’d agree that it confuses things if you’re crossing the Pacific and then quickly bringing up cases that may or may not have happened there and somehow suggest it ought to be incorporated in our own assessment of coal costs.
What exactly are the costs here?
Electricity energizes around $1 trillion of GDP. Are you suggesting coal fired plants true costs make this uneconomic production? Seriously?
I don’t think there is anyone here who’s complaining about using brown coal as a fertilizer here, Mel, so it seems you’re having that argument with yourself.
Coal as a fertilizer? Fuck yea bring it on.
You also need to factor in the costs of subsidizing solar and wind Mel and let us know what that cost works out to.
This thread, in case y’all hadn’t noticed, started as a thread about the cab rank rule and the separation of powers, stuff about which both LE and I can be reckoned to be reasonably expert.
We are not expert on everything. Nor do we aspire to be.
As you may have noticed, I seldom comment about environmental issues. This is because I find them singularly uncompelling.
If I have anything to say about the green movement, it concerns what appears to me (and which Lorenzo has already alluded to) to be a failure to grasp the most basic economic issues. Much of the alternative energy being touted may well work — I don’t know, I’m not an engineer. However, making a top-down ‘call’ on where and how to invest represents ‘industry policy’ as its worst. ‘Industry policy’ often leads to things like this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11673919
Now it is possible to have a kairetsu economy (the Japanese MITI system), and it is possible to ‘pick winners’, but it is very hard to do and fails more than it succeeds — see, for instance, Japan’s ‘lost decade’.
That said, where industry policy has been a success, I think it should be copied. France adopted nuclear power in the 1970s, and is now in the position to tell Putin & co where to go. Yes, it was state-sponsored industry policy. But it succeeded. So, if we want to go ‘green’, we have a working system to emulate.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel, like so many of the greenies want to do.
SL,
Your article says the Korean company Hyundai built and never used a factory in Scotland. It says nothing about industry policy.
M@66 Yes, there are externalities to coal, though it rather depends on local rules and their enforcement as well as population size and densities. But externalities are a “one in, all in” matter. Are you going to factor in the externalities of more expensive energy too?
And yes, prices can change. I seriously doubt that our current level of energy generation technology is the last word. So, at some point, other uses of coal may well become more valuable. Victoria still benefits greatly from the fact that brown coal is not a practical export and so has lower prices.
PW@64
A truly puerile comment. You have no idea where people on this thread get their income from and whether it would go up or down depending on various policy positions.
The point being argued is a much larger one about total income and available resources: remembering that falls in total income fall disproportionately on the economically vulnerable. Besides, since environmentalism is patently a “luxury good” (support for “environmental concern” does up disproportionately with income and down disproportionately with falls in income), prosperity is something environmentalists should be in favour of. (Which might be why Green voters are mildly less in favour of more regulation of banks than ALP or Coalition voters: though it also might be that they do not think banks do much damage to Gaia.)
M@70 SL was using an example: I suspect there were some inducements originally offered to Hyundai, but that is beside the point. The wider point is a well-known one: there have been a lot of “white elephants” and failures in industry policy. MITI, for example, was a lot less successful than is usually claimed, since many of the success areas in Japanese exports were pursued against MITI policy, not following it.
[ADMIN: Yes, the Hyundai plant locally was paid for by the Scottish taxpayer, in a failed attempt to encourage high tech investment. It's become pretty notorious around these parts].
Thank you, SL. I didn’t start this thread off as a Green thread. I just positioned my own beliefs in case some wingnut came along and started accusing me of being a member of the Greens or something. After reading this thread, my husband said glumly, “You’re better off being silent, if you suggest that you disagree with the Greens, they just jump on you and tell you you’re stupid.” And THAT IS WHY I DON’T LIKE THEM AS A PARTY, despite liking their social policies. I bloody hate their self-righteousness. I can’t stand it. That being said, as Miss Candy says above, I know some lovely and perfectly decent Greens who are willing to have a reasonable discussion without calling a person stupid or evil. They’re all lawyers, so they’re accustomed to hearing different points of view. The more Walters the Greens get the better, I say.
Mel, if you can’t deal with the fact that other people prioritise things differently to you, and have different beliefs to you, then you are better off not commenting here. >:-( And yeah, you’ve made me bloody grumpy, derailing this thread into your personal bugbears then criticising me for not being a total expert in it.
Incidentally, in case you are wondering, I wasn’t around yesterday to superintend this thread as it got derailed because I was attending a Jewish wake/minyan (at short notice because you have to bury within 24 hours). Not particularly cheery today. So there.
Back to cab-rank… Yesterday’s Age showed the ALP defending their dirty tricks department (funded by we taxpayers I add, not their party funds), with the attorney-general pooh-poohing the position in this post.
There are similar issues with strident catholic doctors, particularly in small country towns.
By the very nature of criminal law, the accusation is of an anti-social act (except where the law is against majority opinion, euthanasia being one example), so if you are to have just trials, the public must demand something as effective as the cab-rank rule.
Where is Horace Rumpole when we need him?
Lorenzo
I agree. Thus my point was that his taking the case no doubt had little to do with the ‘cab rank rule’. He took the case without a moment’s hesitation, coz that’s the kinda work he always does. Those who admire his deference to professional ethical standards, the ROL blah, blah, blah, are probably being taken for a ride by the halo effect the Greens have so successfully cultivated about themselves.
LE, sorry to here of your loss.
However.
I don’t get your attack on Mel.
“other people prioritise things differently than you”,
could be a charge more appropriately laid at the foot of Mel’s hardcore and intolerant critics.
Why do something that avoids damaging the environment, when you can do something that smashes the environment, simply to prove to Greens and anyone else conscious enough to be concerned, that you’ll do what you want, regardless of what harm anywhere else to anyone else; after Gunns in Tasmania for example,
If I had a dollar for every time the “anti development” charge has been iterated and rebutted with, “not development, but unsustainable development”.
I’ll go back to my original point.
If so many of these projects are so marv ellous and harmless, why are the details hidden and suppressed and why is the science so often ignored or likewise suppressed?
It’s one thing to have a point of view; another thing to inflict the consequences of that point of view onothers, as developers with politicians in thei rpockets, have the power to do.
Do you think a sane person should want to see a park destroyed or river, just so some tostesterone driven developer can score more conspicuous consumption, to shore up his ego and lack of self reflexivity and regardless of the affect of the resulting pollution, becasuse a kneecapped EPA system wasnt allowed to discover a deliberately obscured problem and draw attention to it?
Never mind that lawyers can’t choose clients, clients can choose lawyers. I’ve always wondered about clients who choose unsympathetic lawyers – what, for example, was that gay man thinking in hiring a reluctant homophobe? Of course, if it was Legal Aid or similar he may have had no choice.
Were I Walters I would merely have said something to the client along the lines of “Well of course I am bound to take your case if you wish it, and in that case I would of course do my best whatever my private views, But there are plenty of other lawyers who could do a better job than me – for example my friend xxx”.
But then perhaps he just needed the work.
Like Mel, I’m out of here too. You hijacked the thread yourself, LE. The issue wasn’t one for green-bashing but you couldn’t resist. Of course that sort of nonsense is going to get a response, so both you and SL are being too precious by half about the nasty greenies picking on you. You’ve got the nerve to upbraid Mel for taking you and your camp followers on, and then allow extremist nonsense from the likes of JC a free pass . You’re even-handed in neither word nor deed.
I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t so bloody obvious.
Paul… Fresh out of reading the pro- Leninist op-ed from Green left weekly?
Here’s a chore for you, Griswald.
Carefully and clearly explain to people what exactly do you mean by “sustainable development”? Keep in mind that these days the word “sustainable” is perhaps them most abused word in the left’s language so it would be nice of you to tell us exactly what you mean. Precisely so.
And while you’re there also tell us why you think you should have a right to dictate what your neighbor can do with his property and why you should have such dictatorial powers over others.
Go!
JC, see you are your usual contructive best: no adhominems, no smears or abuse, just straight to issues and substances.
What a blessing you are.
Do you think a sane person should want to see a park destroyed or river, just so some tostesterone driven developer can score more conspicuous consumption
Don’t worry about that Paul, we are dumping so many endocrine disruptors, particularly estrogenic compounds, and possibly even anti-androgenic compounds, into the general environment that soon enough testosterone may be in short supply.
Paul:
Please be precise. What exactly do you mean by “sustainable development”?
I do not agree with JC’s point of view on the Walters thing, nor do I agree with him that all Greens are evil and stupid. FFS, I was supporting Walters in the original post.
I explained why I didn’t have time to superintend the thread as much as I would have liked. If I had had time and had seen the thread earlier in the day, I would have come down on it all a lot earlier (especially JC, Paul Walter and Mel). I tried above to get everyone to be nice in a mild fashion without naming names.
It’s times like this where I just want to give up blogging, I really do. At the moment I can’t stand the whole bloody lot of you without exception.
This thread is now closed.