Category: Politics
  • Brendan Nyst, Litigation, Opinion, Politics

Big Dog Says “Goodnight” – Queensland Lockout Laws

The hottest of hot topics in this state for the past couple of weeks has been the government’s push to implement stricter lockout laws, and tighten the rules around sales and service of alcohol. Premier Palaszczuk has made clear her willingness to die in the ditch over the issue, and without doubt her declared motives for so doing are admirable. She’s determined to reduce the instance of alcohol-fuelled violence on our streets, and who could argue against that?
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Politics

The Hero Of Palmyra

The armed militants of Daesh, pillaging and plundering their way across the Middle East, proclaim themselves heroes of Islam. But heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Politics

“Kelly” MacGroarty RIP

This week saw the passing of my very dear friend and mentor Kelly Macgroarty, one of Queensland’s greatest criminal law defence barristers of any era. Born Neil Joseph Macgroarty 81 years ago, he inherited the tag "Kelly" from his father Neil Francis Macgroarty, himself a distinguished Brisbane barrister who served as Queensland Attorney General in the Moore government of the 20's and 30's.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Politics

Taking On The State

Experienced lawyers will tell you, you can’t really call yourself a litigator until you’ve won the unwinnable case, and lost the un-loseable. I’ve had more than my share of hopeless cases, with varying results, but here’s one even I wouldn’t like to take on.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Politics

From Little Things

Last week ‘New York’s Finest’ were reaching for their Smartphones, posting happy snaps of panhandlers begging on Broadway and vagrants urinating in the streets. What the…?!
  • Chris Nyst, Hollywood, Litigation, Opinion, Politics

The Bloody Insult

Not everything's about money. One of my favourite Australian films of all time is Ken Hannan’s classic 1975 drama Sunday Too Far Away. It tells the tale of knock-about shearers working the sheds on an outback sheep station in 1955 Australia. Their tough existence is summed up in the title, paraphrasing what’s known as The Shearers Wife’s Lament – “Friday night too tired, Saturday night too drunk, Sunday too far away.” Jack Thompson plays Foley, a hard-drinking gun shearer who leads his workmates in a strike over their substandard working conditions. When their employer brings in non-union labour in a bid to break the strike, Foley and his mates dig in. It’s a great line, and a great way to end the film.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Politics

Ruffled Eagle Feathers

A clash of Queensland judicial personalities flared earlier this week, with the Courier Mail newspaper reporting on Wednesday a serious difference of opinion between retired District Court Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe and current President of the Court of Appeal Margaret McMurdo. When Judge Wolfe retired in September last year, Justice McMurdo gave a speech at an Australian Association of Women Judges luncheon, held in Judge Wolfe’s honour, in which she lamented what she perceived to be the deepening state of gender inequality on the Queensland bench. The following day Judge Wolfe reportedly wrote a private letter to the Newman government, distancing herself from Justice McMurdo's comments, and claiming no one at the luncheon agreed with her remarks.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Politics

Ten Years On

10 years ago today, on 27 November 2004, the indigenous community of Palm Island erupted. The islanders had just heard read out at a public meeting the autopsy report into the death of the local man known posthumously simply as Mulrunji. He had been arrested a week earlier and taken to the Palm Island police lock-up, where he died a short while later following a scuffle with a Senior Sergeant of Police. A medical examination found he had sustained a cut above his right eye and four broken ribs, his portal vein was ruptured and his liver was split almost in two.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Politics

Cedric Hampson, One Of God’s Own Gentlemen. RIP

When I received a call last night to hear my old friend and mentor Cedric Hampson QC had passed away at his home over the weekend I was left with a deep sense of sadness. Cedric was not only a great intellect, and a very fine lawyer, but he really was one of God’s own gentlemen. A published novelist and lover of the arts, the former rugby player, Rhodes Scholar and President of the Queensland Bar Association was a man for all seasons, equally at home dissecting thorny legal issues before the Court of Appeal as he was sipping red wine and chatting idly about our common interest in movies, music and the arts. Over the years  Cedric and I worked closely together on many cases, including the successful appeal of former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, and he was  always an inspiration. He was rightly recognised as without peer in the Queensland legal profession for generations. Above all he was just a lovely man – always courteous, avuncular and generous of spirit - and he will be sorely missed.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Politics

Is The Chief Justice Debate About Carmody?

I read with great interest the newspaper report on comments made by Court of Appeal Justice John Muir in his recent address to the North Queensland branch of the Bar Association’s biannual Court of Appeal dinner in Townsville.