Ex-teacher, legal dynamo and, oh yes, a woman: welcome to the High Court
By Michael Pelly Legal Reporter
September 21, 2005
Don't tell Susan Crennan her appointment to the High Court is a victory for women.
When she was first touted for judicial office a decade ago, the Victorian said the feminists had it wrong when they complained about the paucity of women lawyers or surgeons. They wanted to play a blame game, when there were "biological imperatives" and huge demands on those who combined career and family.
"You make sacrifices. I don't think I've spent enough time with my children [she has three] over the years," she said in 1992.
"I've got a housekeeper and I see that as spreading my income around … The feminists wouldn't like that either because you're getting someone else doing your housework. They'd rather see the men doing it."
Other attempts to categorise the second woman appointed to the High Court will fail. "She can't be pigeonholed," the Commonwealth Solicitor General, David Bennett, QC, said yesterday.
His reaction was a recurring theme - she was a fine lawyer full stop. Not a woman lawyer. Not a black-letter lawyer. Not a leftie. Not a conservative. Not an Anglo-Celtic private school type who had done nothing but law.
The appointment of Justice Crennan, 60, who has been on the Federal Court for only 19 months, will nonetheless quell the disquiet over the fact that Mary Gaudron had been the only woman on the High Court.
Justice Crennan is a grandmother and a former teacher who turned to law after meeting her husband, Michael, himself a senior counsel. Her first job as a barrister was reading with Mr Bennett in Sydney in 1979 - when she was 34. "I thought she was good but you don't think someone will go that far," he said.
Within 10 years she was a Queen's counsel - a time frame reserved only for the exceptional. She achieved wider notoriety when she was counsel assisting the Victorian Government in the Tricontinental financial inquiry, which lasted two years. She was the first woman to chair the Victorian Bar Council, and the first female president of the Australian Bar Association. She served for six years as a federal human rights commissioner.
A former head of Pyramid Building Society, Bill Farrow, described what it was like to face her in court. "It's a bit like being picked for fullback against Gary Ablett … possibly [Garry] Hocking and a few others as well."
Justice Crennan's appointment was announced by the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, yesterday. She will replace Justice Michael McHugh, who challenged the Government last month to appoint a woman when he reached the retirement age of 70 on November 1.
But Mr Ruddock said he was appointing "the best person for the job" and that she would "make an outstanding member of the High Court regardless of gender".
Victorian barrister Kate McMillan, SC, said Justice Crennan was one of the last generalists - those who can tackle almost any area of law.
She joins Frank Gavan Duffy and Garfield Barwick as the oldest appointees to the court, where she will renew some old aquaintances. At Sydney University she was taught by Dyson Heydon and Bill Gummow, now two of the court's seven justices.
She has made few speeches, but at her inauguration in February last year, she acknowledged the view of the Chief Justice, Murray Gleeson, that "we live in a rights-conscious age".
Mr Bennett said he believed Justice Crennan would "bring a very great sense of balance to the court … She is very balanced; she does not have any great baggage or any biases."
He once described her as "not at all a frivolous young person" but those who have seen her beating a bodhran at her St Patrick's Day parties might think otherwise.
Indeed, Ms McMillan describes her as "a great stick".
"She has a great sense of humour. She will share a joke and they do like to celebrate the Irish national day." She said Justice Crennan was a beacon for the modern women who wanted to have it all, but not for those advocating affirmative action.
Justice Crennan said: "The problem with being a female barrister is that you don't have a wife. The wives of barristers do a terrific job. If they've got six kids and the husband wants to work three nights a week and one day on the weekend, well there's someone minding the children."
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SMH
