Hopefully my computer won't give up tonight... It has been on electronic life support for a few days now and it's giving out some funny noises... 

George “Bookshelves” Brandis brands himself as the philosopher king of the Nasty Party. Readers of the Fairfax papers last weekend were doubtless gobsmacked to read a swan song interview with Bookshelves where one anonymous colleague claimed that “the government would lose a chunk of its ‘intellectual heft’ ” if it lost Brandis. 

Memories are fading of great pieces of intellectual heft such as the odd deals with the West Australian government over Bell Group and gypping the ATO, the confounding explanations made during the solicitor-general standoff, the claiming of dubious expenses, the hounding of Gillian Triggs and the fundamental belief in the fundamental right to be a bigot. 

Another alarming observation from the outgoing attorney-general was that Malcolm Turnbull has “grown in stature [and is] looking more and more like John Howard every day”. Howard, of course, is a very tall man whom Brandis once described as a “rodent”. 

Anyway, last week Bookshelves made a few farewell appointments before popping off to London, including another elevation of one of his personal favourites from Yarraside. A little while ago he appointed Melbourne barrister Willy Alstergren as chief judge of the Federal Circuit Court. Last week, he gave him another job as deputy chief justice of the Family Court of Australia. The effect of which was to deprive the Family Court of a sorely needed extra full-time judge. Willy’s appointment presages a more fused federal judiciary.

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2017/12/23/gadfly-ding-dong-merrily-...

The Turnbull government has been slammed for ignoring a major legal report for more than two years, while continuing to enact laws that erode fundamental rights.

The Law Council of Australia and the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs have urged the new Attorney-General, Christian Porter, to curb what the think tank called "the ongoing erosion of legal rights" in Australia.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ongoing-erosion-of...

The incoming attorney general, Christian Porter, is sinewy, wound taut, a marathon runner, a Cleo magazine finalist for 1999’s Bachelor of the Year and a man in a hurry.

Actually, Porter started out life as a well-padded frat boy and counts losing 30kg in his late 20s as one of the proudest achievements.

Unsurprisingly, shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus, in a press release headed “Out of the frying pan, into the fire”, thinks they share other qualities, namely undistinguished ministerial records.

Brandis we know only too well: leading the charge to unstitch protections under the Racial Discrimination Act; expansion of the state’s intrusion into private lives without having a clear idea of the meaning of metadata; flouting FOI laws; requiring his prior approval before agencies can seek the advice of the solicitor general; authorisation of an Asio raid on an Australian lawyer; bullying the Human Rights Commission’s Gillian Triggs and trying to force her to resign; cuts to the community legal centres; defenestrating the Australia Council; and plum jobs on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for underemployed Liberal party favourites.

Porter as social services minister presided over the “robodebt” fiasco where citizens on Centrelink benefits were sent threatening missives and ordered to pay back money that in many cases they did not have and did not owe. His uncreative approach to managing the social security budget has been one of slash and burn...

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/02/porters-new-job-ne...