Peter O’Callaghan interview 22 July 2009

The licensing branch of McGuinness’s were essentially licensing solicitors, and I was initially immersed in this common law matter, I might say that Lou Voumard leading Arthur Adams, was appearing for Elliott, and Douglas Little, leading Ninian Stephen was for Warming Hayes. We appeared before Alistair Adam, and it was a great introduction to a completely unknowing person myself, as to the common law. But the licensing jurisdiction was very interesting. Brian Bourke, who was at McGuiness’s when I arrived, and Brian left for overseas in about mid 1958, and I sort of succeeded to his role as a practitioner for what we called transfer of licenses. Now if I can interpolate – until 1953 there had been a numerical limitation on the number of licenses, and the Act which was passed then and which created the Licensing Court and removed that limitation, and produced a Licensing Court of Judge Fraser, Frank Field, and Ron Atchison. The second read speech of the formation of that Court, was moved by Archie Fraser, he was what they call him the gravel-throated tenor, in the legislative counsel. And he moved the speech which resulted in him being the chairman of the Licensing Court, and it is piquant, it was piquant, that nobody every quite knew, and this was in the days of the massive Labor Party split, as to whether Archie and Frank Field (leave aside Ron Atchison) would have been for the DLP or against the DLP. But however, that produced a massive legal opportunity. The silks who appeared in the licensing applications, and this is one of the terrors of doing things like this (you might miss someone out), but Don Campbell QC, Monaghan QC, Bourke QC, Sweeney QC, O’Driscoll QC, Smithers QC, and juniors Campton, O’Shea, Coleman, and Kevin Anderson.

Who you read with.?

Indeed.

I understand it was a stressful tribunal to appear for in many ways, particularly I think you wrote an obituary about the late Charles Sweeney, and you said ‘particularly when the judge was in form.’?

It was indeed a stressful tribunal, and it was one that I thought it honed the skills of people who appeared before them. Archie Fraser had his good qualities, but he also had his bad qualities. And I can recall him saying, when I was cross examining, and I asked a question, and I’ve forgotten who it was, it may have been John Campton, he objected, and I said ‘I withdraw the question’, and Fraser said ‘oh no you don’t, tell me why you asked it’. [Laughs] And he was a most difficult person to appear before. On the contrary, Frank Field was one of the more judicial characters I think I’ve ever met, and Ron Atchison was a different type again. But the Licensing Court now you’ve revived it, it springs to mind that Reg Smithers, who appeared for the, what we call The Dries, that is the objections on any ground to the granting of a license, and he had gone to a meeting the night before at North Balwyn and asked the assembled throng, ‘well do you want me to tell the court that liquor is evil, it’s evil in all circumstances?’ So he did, and Frank Field said, ‘Well, do you say that liquor is evil in all circumstances?’ ‘Yes, I do’. And the consequence was that there was a barney between the Court and he, and such that he slammed his brief down and he said ‘I’m withdrawing’, and walked out. And Atchison said ‘well why are you doing that’, ‘I don’t like the look on your faces’. And then Fraser said to Kevin Anderson, who was Smithers’ junior, ‘well, what do you say?’ and he said, ‘I follow my leader’. Look, I could go on for ages about the things that occurred in the Licensing Court -

Can I ask you about one actually, because you also mentioned the late Don Campbell, and I understand he had a tendency to spoonerisms, and I believe he was cross-examining a witness and asking him whether he would like to have his liquor delivered, but Don Campbell actually said whether he would like his “liver de-liquored’?

That’s certainly prevalent, and I wasn’t there when that happened. But Don Campbell was, when I first came to the Bar, and I had a great deal to do with him both as his junior and as a junior opposing him, because he was always opposed by a silk – I got to know him very well, he died at only the age of 67, which seems terribly young from my perspective now. But he was - until he got crotchety and started to fight the bench - one of the best barristers I’ve seen, and certainly one of the great cross-examiners. And he was always crotchety and he didn’t have the admiration of his contemporaries that I think he had from persons such as I. But as I say (we haven’t got all this much time but I could tell you lots of stories of – oh, I will tell you one)… Harry Campton, who was John Campton’s father, and Harry Campton had been a member of the previous Licensing Court, and he was asking questions of a witness, and John who was Donny’s junior, objected. And the objection was overruled and he continued, then he objected again, and again, and then he got up and he said, ‘my learned friend says that this is going somewhere, well I invite the Court to accept from him an undertaking that it is going somewhere’. And with that, Harry ceased being the barrister but rather the father, and said ‘I’ll give undertakings to no one, and not to you, etc’. And Archie Fraser said ‘oh, please, please Mr Campton, yes, yes’. So everything cooled down, and then the sibilant whisper of Donny Campbell (who) said ‘that’s what comes of having a father at the Bar’.

[Laughs]

Now I’ll just tell you one other thing, I think, out of the Licensing Court. From time to time, they brought down, John Starke, Jack Cullity, and not infrequently, and this was Dr Coppel. And I was junior to Dr Coppel, I just got round to conforming with the Bar tradition of calling him ‘Coppel’, and that he was always tremendous as far as I was concerned, though he was an acerbic character. But we were walking into the Licensing Court, and Warrington Rogers of Rogers and Gaylard, said to Coppel ‘oh, an unfamiliar jurisdiction, Dr Coppel?’ And Coppel had a penchant to rub his nails in his coat, said ‘infrequent, yes, unfamiliar - no’.

When he used to rub his nails, I believe people used to say it was him sharpening his talons?

I think that’s probably right

An edited version of an interview conducted for the Victorian Bar oral history project by Juliette Brodsky, filmed by Stewart Carter at Owen Dixon Chambers and edited by David Broder.