Walter Campbell

Sir Walter Benjamin Campbell AC, QC KStJ (4 March 1921 – 4 September 2004) was a judge on the Supreme Court of Queensland, Chancellor of the University of Queensland, and Governor of Queensland, Australia.

Background and early life

Campbell was born in Burringbar, Northern New South Wales, Australia to Archie Eric Gordon Campbell and Leila Mary nee Murphy.. [Geoff Barlow & JF Corkery, “Sir Walter Campbell Queensland Governor and his role in Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s resignation, 1987,” Owen Dixon Society eJournal (Gold Coast, Queensland: Bond University, 2007): 2.] ] Archie Campbell was a decorated soldier of the First World War, having won the Military Cross for gallantry against the Turks in Gaza and the Distinguished Service Order for later efforts in Damascus. [Angus Innes, "Sir Walter Campbell", Shoulder to Shoulder: The Journal of the Society of St. Andrew of Scotland (QLD): (Brisbane: Society of St. Andrew of Scotland, February 2000) 9-24.] Leila Campbell died unexpectedly, leaving Walter and his brothers to spend a considerable amount of time with their mother's parents in Northern NSW. [Angus Innes, "Sir Walter Campbell Pt. 2", Shoulder to Shoulder: The Journal of the Society of St. Andrew of Scotland (QLD), (Brisbane: Society of St. Andrew of Scotland, June 2000).]

The death of his mother had interrupted his early education at a Christian Brothers' convent in Toowoomba and led to Campbell continuing his studies at a college in Lismore, NSW. [Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 2. ] Campbell completed his education at Downlands College, Toowoomba, becoming the College's first Open Scholar in the late 1930's, [Innes “Sir Walter Campbell Pt. 2.” ] having already been named dux of the College twice and earning the highest grade in Queensland for Senior Latin. [St. John's Cathedral – Paul de Jersey, State funeral service for the Honourable Sir Walter Benjamin Campbell AC QC, 4 March 1921-4 September 2004 (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 2004): 4.]

University

Campbell attended the University of Queensland from 1940 with an interruption to his studies the following year to take up service in the Royal Australian Air Force. [Innes “Sir Walter Campbell Pt. 2.”] In his first year at the University of Queensland, Campbell became editor of the student paper Semper Floreat. [Ibid.] He graduated in 1948 with first class honours in Law in 1948, having already gained a Master of Arts the previous year. [St. John's Funeral for Walter Campbell, 4.]

Military Service

Campbell passed his pilot's examination at Amberley Air-base Queensland on 7 December 1941 and was assigned to the 67th Reserve Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force, which patrolled Australia's eastern coast. [Royal Australian Air Force, Amberley Air Field during World War II: War in the Pacific http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/airfields/amberley.htm] He became a Flight Instructor and was based in Tasmania, badly injuring his knee in a bi-plane crash. [Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 3-4.] After his recovery, the RAAF put Campbell in command of a Liberator Base in the Darling Downs. [Ibid.]

Legal career

Campbell was admitted to the Bar in 1948 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1960. [This was already part of the existing wikipedia article and can be considered general information as it is found in almost every account of Campbell's life.] His practice took him as high in the legal world as the Privy Council in London, which he appeared before on several occasions. [“Former Governor no stranger to disputes” Courier Mail 7 September 2004.] He became a member of the Law Faculty Board at the University of Queensland in 1954. [Ibid.] Campbell himself recalled that when he entered the legal profession “there were only about seventy barristers in private practice in Queensland”, [Walter Campbell “Opening address to the 30th Legal Symposium” (4 March 1990) in Speeches of Sir Walter Campbell Vol. I Nos. 1-25. Brisbane: Supreme Court Library, 1972-1993.] contrasting this number with the increase that had taken place by the time he was Governor of Queensland. In 1965, Campbell became President of the Queensland Association, holding this position simultaneously with the presidency of the national equivalent from 1966-67. [Courier Mail 7 September 2004.] As a matter of some historical irony, Campbell represented Joh Bjelke-Petersen in a failed High Court appeal against the Australian Taxation Office in 1959. [Rae Wear, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: The Lord's Premier (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2002): 92.]

Judiciary

In 1967, Campbell gained a position on the bench of the Supreme Court of Queensland. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Campbell would meet with other Justices in Canberra when they had been summoned to various board and committee meetings and discuss various issues facing the judiciary ranging from problems with sentencing to the difficulty of persuading eminent lawyers to enter the judiciary. [Walter Campbell, “Opening of Conference of Supreme and Federal Court Judges, 25 January 1988”: 2 in Speeches of Sir Walter Campbell Vol. I Nos. 1-25. Brisbane: Supreme Court Library, 1972-1993.] The issue of lawyers being unwilling to move from the Bar to the Bench remained a concern to Campbell even after he had left the judiciary and become Governor. [Ibid. 14]

In 1982, the incumbent Chief and Puisine Justices of Queensland were scheduled to retire, having reached the mandatory age of 70. [Courier Mail 18 February 1982] Campbell became the centre of a controversy, as he was chosen to fill the Chief Justiceship instead of Jim Douglas, the favoured candidate of the Liberal party. [Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, Don't you worry about that! The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs (NSW: Angus & Robertson Australia, 1990) 243.] Joh Bjelke-Petersen admitted to choosing Campbell as a “compromise candidate” to Justice Douglas and his own preferred Chief Justice, Dormer Andrews. [Ibid. ] The retiring Chief Justice declared that he had nothing against Campbell personally, but that he found the treatment of Douglas “unjust and unsatisfactory”. [Courier Mail 18h February 1982.] Campbell emerged largely unscathed from the controversy, but did clash at times with the Bjelke-Petersen government as Chief Justice, criticising the legal integrity of certain legislation when he found it necessary. [Telegraph, 16 September 2004 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/17/db1702.xml] He was also noted as having contributed significantly to the modernisation of the Court in Queensland during his time as Chief Justice. [Ibid.]

Chancellor

Having been a member of the University of Queensland Senate since 1963, [University of Queensland “UQ farewells eminent graduate and former Chancellor” http://www.uq.edu.au/update/archive/index.html?page=21935&pid=3684 ] Campbell was well established within the activities of the University. In 1977 he became Chancellor of the University, holding the position for nine years until 1985. As Chancellor, Campbell criticised the method of admitting people into tertiary student positions, claiming some reform was needed. [Courier Mail 7 September 2004.] There was also controversy in this period when the government forced the University publishers to withdraw the second volume of Ross Fitzgerald's "History of Queensland" and the university awarded an honourary doctorate of law to Premier Bjelke-Petersen. [Ibid.]

Governor

Campbell succeeded Sir James Ramsay as Governor of Queensland on 22 July 1985. There has been some conjecture that the Bjelke-Petersen government may have elevated Campbell to this position in order to remove him from the Chief Justiceship. [Courier Mail 7 September 2004 & Telegraph, 16 September 2004 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/17/db1702.xml] All of the controversies surrounding Campbell appear to be merely projections of the very controversies affecting Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his government, with Campbell's inauguration as Governor attracting complaint from the Queensland Trades and Labour Council that they had been ostracised from the swearing-in ceremony due to political manoeuvring by the State Government. [Courier Mail 23 July 1985.]

This tradition of controversy involving Campbell and the government came to crisis in 1987 when there was internal strife within the National Party between Bjelke-Petersen and his cabinet, which almost caused a constitutional crisis in Queensland governance. There had already been murmurs in early 1987 of a vice-regal intervention in Queensland politics, with The Australian newspaper featuring a front page article in March detailing the threat of State Opposition leader Neville Warburton to seek a dismissal of the Bjelke-Petersen ministry from Governor Campbell over allegations of illegal conduct by the Government. [Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 9.] These suggestions came to nothing. However, later in the year when Bjelke-Petersen lost the confidence of his cabinet, the question was again raised as to what role Campbell as Governor would play in the event of a constitutional crisis.

On 23 November 1987, Premier Bjelke-Petersen visited Campbell at Government House to discuss a restructuring of his ministry. [Walter Campbell “Letter from Governor Walter Campbell to Premier Bjelke Petersen, 25 November 1987,” 1 inWalter Campbell, Johannes Bjelke Petersen & Michael J. Ahern, Copies of correspondence relating to the change-over from the Bjelke-Petersen government to the Ahern government in late 1987. (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1988).] It was Bjelke-Petersen's wish to dissolve his entire ministry and be recommissioned as Premier with a new distribution of ministerial portfolios, however Campbell's advice was for the Premier to seek the individual resignations of those ministers he wanted removed from the ministry. [Ibid.] After having approached five ministers about resigning from their offices and being refused by each one, the Premier returned to Campbell on the 24 November and requested the termination of the commissions of three of the five ministers, to which Campbell agreed. [Ibid.] While the government's problems were already serious, the difficulty for Campbell began on the 26 November, when one of the dismissed ministers, Mike Ahern, became Leader of the Parliamentary National Party and wrote to Campbell seeking a new commission that would replace Bjelke-Petersen as Premier with Ahern. [Michael J. Ahern, “Letter from Parliamentary Leader of the State Parliamentary National Party Mike Ahern to His Excellency Governor Walter Campbell on 26 November 1987,” in Walter Campbell, Johannes Bjelke Petersen & Michael J. Ahern, Copies of correspondence relating to the change-over from the Bjelke-Petersen government to the Ahern government in late 1987. (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1988). ] As the Sydney Morning Herald had succinctly described the situation, Queensland now had a “Premier who is not leader” and the National Party a “Leader who is not Premier”. [Peter Bowers and Greg Roberts, ‘Ahern leads, but Joh rules’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 November 1987. Cited in Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 23. ] There was a tense period where Bjelke-Petersen refused to resign his commission and Campbell refused to prematurely terminate it. The legal advice Campbell had received dictated that his course of action should be to only contemplate dismissing Bjelke-Petersen without the Premier's consent if he refused to resign after failing a vote-of-no-confidence, [“Memorandum from the Solicitor General, 26 November 1987,” Section 7, in Walter Campbell, Johannes Bjelke Petersen & Michael J. Ahern, Copies of correspondence relating to the change-over from the Bjelke-Petersen government to the Ahern government in late 1987 (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1988). ] however there were also fears that the Premier might advise Campbell to dissolve Parliament and call elections. [Ibid and “Correspondence between Dr. Christopher D. Gilbert and Cleary & Hoare Solicitors,” in Walter Campbell, Johannes Bjelke Petersen & Michael J. Ahern, Copies of correspondence relating to the change-over from the Bjelke-Petersen government to the Ahern government in late 1987 (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1988). ] Some sections of the press attacked Campbell for his apparent inactivity during the crisis, while other voices within the legal and political world supported his course of action. [Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 23-25.] It was Bjelke-Petersen's eventual resignation, effective from 1 December that ended the crisis, [“Letter from Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen to His Excellency Governor Walter Campbell submitting resignation of himself and Ministry, 30 November 1987,” in Walter Campbell, Johannes Bjelke Petersen & Michael J. Ahern, Copies of correspondence relating to the change-over from the Bjelke-Petersen government to the Ahern government in late 1987. (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1988). ] with Campbell receiving the subsequent praise of many in the media for his handling of the undesirable situation. [Barlow & Corkery “Sir Walter Campbell,” 28-29.]

In March 1988, Campbell gave a lecture on The Role of a State Governor to the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration Queensland Division, in which he described the various functions carried out by state governors, the legal and constitutional frame work of the office and numerous historical accounts of different situations involving vice-regents in Queensland and other Commonwealth domains.The Brisbane Expo of 1988 also technically brought a short respite to Campbell's vice-regal duties as Queen Elizabeth was present in Queensland for the opening of the fair and would have been capable of performing any of the functions of the Crown should the government have wished.

Retirement

After seven years in Government House, Campbell retired from the Governor's Office in July 1992. [St. John's Funeral for Walter Campbell, 2.] He did not retire quietly, continuing to speak at various functions and publicly opposing Paul Keating's push for an Australian republic in 1993 by writing to the British Daily Telegraph. [Australian League of Rights, “Former Governor challenges Keating,” On Target Vol. 29 No. 32 (1993). http://www.alor.org/Volume29/Vol29No32.htm] He continued his advocacy for the monarchy later that year when launching the second volume of Upholding the Australian Constitution, stating, “republicanism I think is being used by certain people as a pretext or as a blind or a screen to conceal a deeper purpose or purposes.” [“Launch of Upholding the Australian Constitution – Vol. 2, Samuel Griffith Society, 26 October 1993,” 2-3 in Walter Campbell Speeches of Sir Walter Campbell ]

Personal

Campbell married Georgina Pearce in 1942, [Telegraph, 16 September 2004 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/17/db1702.xml] and fathered three children, Deborah, Peter and Wallace Campbell. [St. John's Funeral for Walter Campbell, 1. & Patricia Kelly, "Lady Georgina Campbell," "The Courier Mail" 4 November 2006.] He resided with his family in Clayfield, Brisbane while a member of the Supreme Court judiciary and retired to Ascot after leaving Government House. [W.J. Draper, "Who's Who in Australia 1983" 24th Edition (Melbourne: Crown Content) 2004: 391.] He died at age 83, in his home on 4 September 2004 after a short period of illness. [Courier Mail 6 September 2004.]

ee also

* Judiciary of Australia
* List of Judges of the Supreme Court of Queensland

External links

* [http://www.alumni.uq.edu.au/?page=281&pid=273 University of Queensland biography]

References