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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2025
Existing studies for the United States examine the extent to which the public is knowledgeable about US courts, arguing that knowledge of the courts is linked to public support for their role. We know little, though, about the Australian public’s awareness of the High Court of Australia. We report the results of a survey of a representative sample of the Australian adult population, administered in November 2017. We find that few Australians know the names of the Justices, the number of Justices on the Court, how the Justices are appointed or for how long they serve. Awareness of recent cases decided by the Court is mixed. We find that age and education are better predictors of awareness levels than is gender. Our findings are important because in the absence of awareness of the High Court, the potential exists for the public to see the Court as having a more overt political role than it has, which may lower esteem for the Court. The potential for this to occur is exacerbated if, and when, politicians attempt to drag the High Court into the political fray, by attributing political motives to it that it does not have.
Acknowledgements to Erwin Gutierrez from Qualtrics for patiently answering many questions about the administration of the survey reported in this article, and Matthew Groves, Shiri Krebs, Carolyn Sutherland and two anonymous reviewers for several helpful suggestions on earlier versions. We alone remain responsible for the views expressed and any remaining errors. This research was approved by Monash University Human Ethics Committee (Project 11582) and Deakin University Human Ethics Committee (Reference 2017-323).
1. A R Blackshield, ‘The Legitimacy and Authority of Judges’ (1987) 10 University of New South Wales Law Journal 155, 160.
2. Justice Virginia Bell, ‘Examining the Judge’ (Speech Delivered at the Launch of Issue 40(2) of the University of New South Wales Law Journal, Sydney, 29 May 2017), 6 <http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/current-justices/bellj/bellj29May2017.pdf>.
3. While one could give many examples, consider as a selection: the right of young people to vote (Rowe v Electoral Commissioner (2010) 243 CLR 1); who can sit in the Federal Parliament (Re Canavan; Re Ludlam; Re Waters; Re Roberts [No 2]; Re Joyce: Re Nash; Re Xenophon (2017) 349 ALR 534); the law pertaining to refugees (Plaintiff M96A/2016 v Commonwealth (2017) 343 ALR 362); the manner in which wages are set (New South Wales v Commonwealth (2006) 229 CLR 1); and freedom of religion (Adelaide Company of Jehovah’s Witnesses Inc v Commonwealth (1943) 67 CLR 116).
4. See, eg, people’s right to enjoy the natural environment (Commonwealth v Tasmania (1983) 158 CLR 1 (‘The Tasmanian Dam Case’)) and what taxes people pay and to which branch of government (see, eg, South Australia v Commonwealth (1942) 65 CLR 373 (‘First Uniform Tax Case’); Victoria v Commonwealth (1957) 99 CLR 575 (‘Second Uniform Tax Case’); Parton v Milk Board (Vic) (1949) 80 CLR 229).
5. See, eg, James L Gibson, Gregory A Caldeira and Vanessa A Baird, ‘On the Legitimacy of National High Courts’ (1998) 92 American Political Science Review 343; Sara C Benesh, ‘Understanding Public Confidence in American Courts’ (2006) 68 The Journal of Politics 697; Damon M Cann and Jeff Yates, ‘Homegrown Institutional Legitimacy: Assessing Citizens’ Diffuse Support for State Courts’ (2008) 36 American Politics Research 297; James L Gibson, ‘The Evolving Legitimacy of the South African Constitutional Court’ in Francois du Bois and Antje du Bois-Pedain (eds), Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2008) 229.
6. For an outline of ‘positivity theory’ or ‘positivity bias’, see David Adamany and Joel B Grossman, ‘Support for the Supreme Court as a National Policymaker’ (1983) 5 Law and Policy Quarterly 405; Gregory A Caldeira and James L Gibson, ‘The Etiology of Public Support for the Supreme Court’ (1992) 36 American Journal of Political Science 635; James L Gibson, Gregory A Caldeira and Lester Kenyetta Spence, ‘Measuring Attitudes Toward the United States Supreme Court’ (2003) 47 American Journal of Political Science 354.
7. A survey administered in 2016 found that the extent to which the Australian public trusted its politicians was at its lowest level since 1969, with only 26 per cent of participants expressing confidence in the Federal Government — see Henry Belot, ‘Confidence in Democracy Hits Record Low as Australians “Disaffected with Political Class”’ ABC News (online), 20 December 2016 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-20/2016-australian-election-disaffected-study/8134508>.
8. Gibson, Caldeira and Baird, above n 5, 349.
9. James L Gibson and Gregory A Caldeira, ‘Knowing the Supreme Court? A Reconsideration of Public Ignorance of the High Court’ (2009) 71 Journal of Politics 429, 437 (emphasis in original).
10. Ibid 430.
11. Justice Margaret McMurdo, ‘Should Judges Speak Out?’ (Paper Presented at the Judicial Conference of Australia, Uluru, April 2001) <http://jca.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/mcmurdo.pdf>.
12. Sir Anthony Mason, ‘The Courts and Public Opinion’ (2002) 11 New South Wales Bar Association News 30.
13. Sir Gerard Brennan, ‘Courts for the People — Not People’s Courts’ (1995) 2 Deakin Law Review 1.
14. Chief Justice Murray Gleeson, ‘Public Confidence in the Judiciary’ (Paper Presented at the Judicial Conference of Australia, Launceston, 27 April 2002) <http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/former-justices/gleesoncj/cj_jca.htm>.
15. The high-water mark was probably when, in 1988, then Chief Justice Sir Gerard Brennan and Justices Mary Gaudron, John Toohey, Kenneth Hayne and William Gummow appeared in a documentary, in which they discussed their lives away from the Bench, including doing the shopping, attending parent-teacher interviews and the difficulties associated with raising daughters — see The Highest Court (Directed by Daryl Dellora, Australian Film Finance Corporation and Film Art Deco Pty Ltd, 1988).
16. (1983) 158 CLR 1; see Martin Clark, ‘Remembering the Tasmanian Dam Case’ on Melbourne Law School, Opinions on High (24 July 2013) <http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/opinionsonhigh/clark-tasmanian-dam/>.
17. High Court of Australia <http://www.hcourt.gov.au>.
18. High Court of Australia, ‘2016–17 Annual Report’ (Annual Report, High Court of Australia, 2017) 26.
19. See Jeremy Gans, ‘Live tweeting from the High Court’ on Melbourne Law School, Opinions on High (27 June 2017) <https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/opinionsonhigh/2017/06/27/news-live-tweeting-the-high-court/>.
20. Margaret Jackson and Marita Shelly, ‘The Use of Twitter by Australian Courts’ (2015) 24 Journal of Law, Information and Science 83.
21. Paul Mason and Daniel Stepniak, ‘“Court in the Web”: The Impact of the Internet on the Cameras in Court Debate’ (2000) 25 Alternative Law Journal 71.
22. High Court of Australia, Recent AV Recordings <http://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/recent-av-recordings>.
23. Re Canavan; Re Ludlam; Re Waters; Re Roberts [No 2]; Re Joyce: Re Nash; Re Xenophon (2017) 349 ALR 534.
24. See, eg, Jackson Gothe-Snape, ‘High Court: Meet the Men and Women Behind the Bench’ ABC News (online), 10 October 2017 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-09/become-a-high-court-justice-expert-in-90-seconds/9010172>.
25. ‘Celebrity, Sports Star, Actor or Judge: Can You Pick Who’s Who on the High Court?’ ABC News (online), 8 October 2017 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-08/high-court-justice-quiz-can-you-pick-these-judges/9011294>.
26. See, by analogy, Arthur Lupia, ‘How Elitism Undermines the Study of Voter Competence’ (2006) 18 Critical Review 217. Lupia argues that questions such as: ‘Can you identify the Vice President?’ reflect a bias as to what academics think voters should know, but are not relevant to voters’ ability to make a competent choice at election time. However, Lupia’s focus is on voters, and the arguments are different when it comes to the mechanisms linking awareness of courts to institutional support for courts.
27. Gibson, Caldeira and Baird, above n 5, 345.
28. Ibid 344 (emphasis added).
29. See, eg, Charles H Franklin, Liane C Kosaki and Herbert M Kritzer, ‘The Salience of US Supreme Court Decisions’ (Working Paper, Department of Political Science, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1993); Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9; John G Bullock and Kelly Rader, ‘Americans’ Knowledge of the US Supreme Court’ (Working Paper, Department of Government, University of Texas, 30 July 2016).
30. Richard Morin, ‘Wapner v Rehnquist: No Contest; TV Judge Vastly Outpolls Justices in Test of Public Recognition’ The Washington Post, 23 June 1989, A21.
31. As reported in Bullock and Rader, above n 29, 7.
32. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9.
33. Ibid.
34. Bullock and Rader, above n 29, 5.
35. Ibid.
36. Diana Evans et al, ‘Who’s on the Bench? The Impact of Latino Descriptive Representation on US Supreme Court Approval Among Latinos and Anglos’ (2017) 98 Social Science Quarterly 1233.
37. Sara C Benesh, Nancy Scherer and Amy Steigerwalt, ‘Public Perceptions of the Lower Federal Courts’ (Working Paper, Department of Political Science, Georgia State University, 3 August 2009).
38. Mark Jonathan McKenzie et al, ‘Americans’ Knowledge of their Local Judges’ (2017) 39 Political Behavior 259.
39. Ibid 265.
40. Ibid 269.
41. American Bar Association, ‘Fact Sheet on Judicial Selection Methods in the States’ <https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/leadership/fact_sheet.authcheckdam.pdf>.
42. Paul Kildea and George Williams, ‘The Mason Court’ in Rosalind Dixon and George Williams (eds), The High Court, the Constitution and Australian Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2015) 244, 255.
43. Mabo v Queensland (1992) 175 CLR 1.
44. Kildea and Williams, above n 42, 256.
45. Karen Gelb, ‘Myths and Misconceptions: Public Opinion Versus Public Judgment About Sentencing’ (Report, Sentencing Advisory Council, 2006) 11.
46. Kate Warner et al, ‘Jury Sentencing Survey’ (Report to the Criminology Research Council Grant: CRC 04/06-07, April 2010).
47. Ibid 95.
48. Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth (1951) 83 CLR 1; see Charles H Sheldon, ‘Public Opinions and High Courts: Communist Party Cases in Four Constitutional Systems’ (1967) 20 Western Political Quarterly 341.
49. Geoffrey Sawer, Australian Federalism in the Courts (Melbourne University Press, 1967) 61; George Winterton, ‘Appointment of Federal Judges in Australia’ (1987) 16 Melbourne University Law Review 185, 188.
50. See, eg, Troy Simpson, ‘Appointments that Might Have Been’ in Tony Blackshield, Michael Coper and George Williams (eds), The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (Oxford University Press, 2001) 23.
51. Winterton, above n 49, 193–4.
52. See, eg, David L Weiden, ‘Judicial Politicization, Ideology and Activism at the High Courts of the United States, Canada and Australia’ (2011) 64(2) Political Research Quarterly 335.
53. For a comparison of the appointment process and decision-making on the High Court and US Supreme Court see Russell Smyth, ‘The “Haves” and the “Have Nots”: An Empirical Study of the Rational Actor and Party Capability Hypotheses in the High Court 1948–99’ (2000) 35 Australian Journal of Political Science 255, 258–61.
54. Bell, above n 2, 6.
55. For a discussion of the Senate confirmation process in the United States see David A Strauss and Cass R Sunstein, ‘The Senate, the Constitution, and the Confirmation Process’ (1992) 101 Yale Law Journal 1491. For a discussion of the saturation media coverage of the judicial nomination process in the United States see Richard Davis, ‘Supreme Court Nominations and the News Media’ (1994) 57 Albany Law Review 1061.
56. Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 347 US 483 (1954).
57. Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973).
58. For a flavour of how these cases have become etched into the American psyche decades after the actual decisions see Jill Lepore, ‘This is Forty: The Anniversary of Roe v Wade’ The New Yorker (online), 17 January 2013 <https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/this-is-forty-the-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade>; Valerie Strauss, ‘How, After 60 Years, Brown v Board of Education Succeeded — And Didn’t’ Washington Post (Washington DC), 24 April 2014.
59. Bell, above n 2, 6.
60. Ibid.
61. See L J King, ‘The Attorney-General, Politics and the Judiciary’ (2000) 74 Australian Law Journal 444.
62. Wik Peoples v Queensland (1996) 187 CLR 1.
63. King, above n 61, 455–6.
64. See Daryl Williams, ‘Who Speaks for the Courts?’ (Paper presented at the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration National Conference on Courts in a Representative Democracy, Canberra, 11–13 November 1994) 183.
65. Sir Anthony Mason, ‘No Place in a Modern Democratic Society for a Supine Judiciary’ (1997) 35 Law Society Journal 51; Mason, above n 12, 31–2.
66. Sir Gerard Brennan, ‘The State of the Judicature’ (1998) 72 Australian Law Journal 33, 41–2.
67. Justice Michael Kirby, ‘The Judiciary in Federation Centenary Year — Good News, Bad News, No News’ (Speech delivered at the Australian Institute of Judicial Information Eleventh Oration, Sydney, 22 June 2001).
68. There are, of course, contexts in which an increase in public awareness of particular judges may undermine public confidence in the judiciary or even make them the butt of jokes. One thinks of the time when former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon (in his role as the Royal Commissioner investigating corruption in trade unions) received a great deal of attention in the media because of his claim that he had not read a particular email attachment because he did not own a personal computer and relied on an assistant to print emails out for him — see Elle Hunt, ‘Dyson Heydon: I Read Emails Only After They Have Been Printed Out for Me’ The Guardian Australia (online) 31 August 2015 <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/31/dyson-heydon-i-read-emails-only-after-they-have-been-printed-out-for-me>. Judges also receive negative media attention when the public perceives that their track record of sentencing indicates they are ‘out of touch’.
69. Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, Guide to Judicial Conduct (Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, 2nd ed, 2007).
70. Matthew Groves, ‘Public Statements by Judges and the Bias Rule’ (2014) 40 Monash University Law Review 115; McMurdo, above n 11, 1–3.
71. Stephen Parker, Courts and the Public (Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, 1998).
72. Morin, above n 30.
73. See, eg, S E K Hulme, ‘Recollections Mainly to Do with the Dixon Court’ (2003) 77 Australian Law Journal 653, 655. Hulme quotes Dame Pattie Menzies as saying to her husband: ‘Robert, you must remember that Owen Dixon is not God’. He replied: ‘No, my dear, but only just’.
74. Leslie Zines, ‘Dixon Court’ in Tony Blackshield, Michael Coper and George Williams (eds), The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia (Oxford University Press, 2001) 220.
75. See Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, Parliament of Australia, Records of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (1986) <https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Parliamentary_Commission>.
76. Philip Ayres, Owen Dixon (The Miegunyah Press, 2003); Jenny Hocking, Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
77. Jeffrey Mondak, ‘Developing Valid Knowledge Scales’ (2001) 45 American Journal of Political Science 224. Given this, one might ask why we used open-ended questions in the first two parts of the survey. We did so for two reasons. One was to facilitate comparison with how the questions on the identities of the judges were asked in ANES, which has been used in most previous studies for the United States. The other is that questions about the identities of the individuals in the first two parts do not lend itself to multiple choice questions given all of the individuals were either judges, politicians or other public figures.
78. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 434.
79. Wilkie v Commonwealth; Australian Marriage Equality Ltd v Cormann (2017) 349 ALR 1.
80. Re Canavan; Re Ludlam; Re Waters; Re Roberts [No 2]; Re Joyce: Re Nash; Re Xenophon (2017) 349 ALR 534.
81. Knight v Victoria (2017) 345 ALR 560.
82. Details on the parole hearing are provided at Nevada Board of Parole Commissioners, Information Related to the Parole Hearing on Orenthal Simpson, NDOC #1027820 <http://parole.nv.gov/information/simpson/simpson-hearing/>.
83. The story was featured on the front page of most major Australian newspapers and was the lead story in the television news broadcasts the evening following Simpson’s release from prison.
84. The one exception is that those studying law, those with a law degree and those working in the legal profession were screened out prior to administering the survey.
85. This decision was taken by the authors and, in all cases, was an obvious decision to make. For example, a few such participants responded that Malcolm Turnbull was ‘a dictator’ and Bill Shorten was ‘a goofball’ (or similar-type responses). A few of the participants that were removed wrote a swear word or offensive word in response to every open-ended question. Other participants that were removed wrote ‘who cares?’ in response to several of the open-ended questions. In no cases did we remove participants who were evidently trying to provide a considered response, even if one or more of their answers were way off the mark.
86. Compare Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, with Bullock and Rader, above n 29.
87. Matthew DeBell, ‘Harder than It Looks: Coding Political Knowledge on the ANES’ (2013) 21 Political Analysis 393, 395–6.
88. Jeffrey Mondak, ‘Reconsidering the Measurement of Political Knowledge’ (2000) 8 Political Analysis 57.
89. Robert C Luskin and John G Bullock, ‘“Don’t Know” Means “Don’t Know”: DK Responses and the Public’s Level of Political Knowledge’ (2011) 73 Journal of Politics 547; Stephen A Jessee, ‘“Don’t Know” Responses, Personality, and the Measurement of Political Knowledge’ (2017) 5 Political Science Research and Methods 711.
90. Bell, above n 2.
91. The relative prominence of Justice Nettle is hard to explain. On the one hand, he does not seem to be a high-profile judge in the sense of giving interviews or making many speeches. One reader of an earlier version of this article suggested that this finding might simply be that, of all the judges, he looks like what people expect a judge to look like. But, this cannot be the reason because we did not show participants photos. It may plausibly be that Justice Nettle is known because he was the trial judge on what has been one of the most high-profile criminal cases in recent Victorian history — R v Bayley [2013] VSC 313; although, if this is the case, it might be expected that his Honour would be most well-known by the public within the state of Victoria. We tested this contention statistically and found that respondents in the state of Victoria were more likely than those from all other states and territories to know Justice Nettle (χ2= 4.192, p < .05).
92. As reported in Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 431.
93. Morin, above n 30.
94. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 433.
95. See Davis, above n 55.
96. Constitution Alteration (Retirement of Judges) Act 1977 (Cth).
97. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 433.
98. Meredith Dost, Dim Public Awareness of Supreme Court as Major Rulings Loom (Pew Research Centre), <http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/14/dim-public-awareness-of-supreme-court-as-major-rulings-loom/>.
99. Franklin, Kosaki and Kritzer, above n 29, 1.
100. Ibid 2.
101. Wilkie v Commonwealth; Australian Marriage Equality Ltd v Cormann (2017) 349 ALR 1.
102. Re Canavan; Re Ludlam; Re Waters; Re Roberts [No 2]; Re Joyce: Re Nash; Re Xenophon (2017) 349 ALR 534.
103. Technically, it was the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns that heard the citizenship seven case. However, with very few exceptions, the media simply referred to the High Court hearing the case; hence, it was framed that way in the survey.
104. Knight v Victoria (2017) 345 ALR 560.
105. See studies cited at above n 89.
106. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 434.
107. Franklin, Kosaki and Kritzer, above n 29, 13.
108. Ibid 23.
109. Ibid.
110. Gibson and Caldeira, above n 9, 434.
111. See, eg, Mónica Ferrín and Marta Fraile, ‘Measuring Political Knowledge in Spain: Problems and Consequences for the Gender Gap in Knowledge’ (2014) 147 Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas 53; Marta Fraile, ‘Do Women Know Less About Politics than Men? The Gender Gap in Political Knowledge in Europe’ (2014) 21 Social Politics 261.
112. See, eg, Jason Barabas, Jennifer Jerit, William Pollock and Carlisle Rainey, ‘The Question(s) of Political Knowledge’ (2014) 108 American Political Science Review 840; Kim L Fridkin and Patrick J Kenney, ‘How the Gender of US Senators Influences People’s Understanding and Engagement in Politics’ (2014) 76 Journal of Politics 1017; Jennifer Jerit and Jason Barabas, ‘Revisiting the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge’ (2017) 39 Political Behavior 817.
113. Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, ‘Cross-national Gender Gaps in Political Knowledge: How Much is due to Context?’ (2016) 69 Political Research Quarterly 391.
114. Jerit and Barabas, above n 112, 818–19.
115. Fortin-Rittberger, above n 113.
116. Jerit and Barabas, above n 112, 819–20.
117. Jeffrey J Mondak and Mary R Anderson, ‘The Knowledge Gap: A Reexamination of Gender-Based Differences in Political Knowledge’ (2004) 66 Journal of Politics 492.
118. Mary-Kate Lizotte and Andrew H Sidman, ‘Explaining the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge’ (2009) 5 Politics & Gender 127.
119. Kathleen Dolan, ‘Do Women and Men Know Different Things? Measuring Gender Differences in Political Knowledge’ (2011) 73 Journal of Politics 97.
120. Michael X Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters (Yale University Press, 1996) 188.
121. Ibid 190.
122. See, eg, John M Strate et al, ‘Life Span Civic Development and Voting Participation’ (1989) 83 American Political Science Review 443; Raymond E Wolfinger and Stephen J Rosenstone, Who Votes? (Yale University Press, 1980).
123. Eric Plutzer, ‘Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources, and Growth in Young Adulthood’ (2002) 96 American Political Science Review 41.
124. Brittany H Bramlett, ‘Aged Communities and Political Knowledge’ (2013) 41 American Politics Research 674.
125. Richard R Lau and David P Redlawsk, ‘Older But Wiser? Effects of Age on Political Cognition’ (2008) 70 Journal of Politics 168.
126. Richard R Lau and David P Redlawsk, How Voters Decide: Information Processing during Election Campaigns (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
127. Another possibility is that the relationship between aging and awareness is non-linear, in which the relationship between aging and awareness is positive to a certain age, but becomes negative after that age. To test this possibility, we would need to know the exact age of the participant and its quadratic (age squared). In the survey, participants did not provide their exact age. Instead, they provided their age in an interval (eg 18–24, 25–34, 45–54 and so on — see Table 1), so we are not able to test if the relationship is nonlinear.
128. A logit model is appropriate when the dependent variable (our measure of awareness or knowledge) is a binary variable. Each of our measures of awareness are binary variables because participants either got the answer right (one outcome) or wrong, including those who answered ‘don’t know’ (the other outcome). Of the independent variables, gender is also a binary variable, while age and highest educational qualification are categorical variables as shown in Table 1. ‘State’ is a binary variable that denotes that the participant lives in the State of Victoria (or not) in the analysis pertaining to the Julian Knight case. In the remaining analyses, ‘State’ is a categorical variable denoting each of the states and territories and is used as a categorical control variable. These results are omitted for ease of presentation.
129. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, 2017 (15 November 2017) <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/1800.0>.
130. See above n 111–12.
131. See Mondak and Anderson, above n 117.
132. See Lizotte and Sidman, above n 118.
133. See Dolan, above n 119.
134. Each of these differences between men and women are statistically significant at less than p = 0.05.
135. See Carpini and Keeter, above n 120.
136. See Kirby, above n 67, where his Honour refers to Chief Justice Murray Gleeson writing first to the Attorney-General in October 1998, then to the Minister of Finance in February 2000 and again to the Attorney-General in October 2000 seeking funding for a public information officer for the Court. No funding was provided on each of these occasions.
137. See High Court of Australia, above n 18.
138. Dellora, above n 15.
139. Gibson, Caldeira and Baird, above n 5.