Walter Campbell
Encyclopedia
Sir Walter Benjamin Campbell, AC, QC
(4 March 1921 – 4 September 2004) was an Australia
n judge, administrator and governor. He was a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland
, Chancellor of the University of Queensland
, and Governor of Queensland
.
, to Archie Eric Gordon Campbell and Leila Mary née Murphy. 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. Leila Campbell died unexpectedly, leaving Walter and his brothers to spend a considerable amount of time with their mother's parents in northern NSW.
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. Campbell completed his education at Downlands College
, Toowoomba, becoming the College's first Open Scholar in the late 1930s, having already been named dux of the College twice and earning the highest grade in Queensland for Senior Latin.
from 1940 with an interruption to his studies the following year to take up service in the Royal Australian Air Force
(RAAF). In his first year at the University of Queensland, Campbell became editor of the student paper Semper Floreat
. He graduated in 1948 with first class honours in Law in 1948, having already gained a Master of Arts the previous year. He passed his pilot's examination at Amberley
Air Base on 7 December 1941 and was assigned to the 67th Reserve Squadron of the RAAF, which patrolled Australia's eastern coast. He became a Flight Instructor and was based in Tasmania, badly injuring his knee in a biplane crash. After his recovery, the RAAF put Campbell in command of a Liberator
Base in the Darling Downs.
in 1960. His practice took him as high in the legal world as the Privy Council
in London
, before which he appeared on several occasions. He became a member of the Law Faculty Board at the University of Queensland in 1954. Campbell himself recalled that when he entered the legal profession “there were only about seventy barristers in private practice in Queensland”, 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 to 1967. 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.
. 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.
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.
In 1982, the incumbent Chief and Puisne
Justices of Queensland were scheduled to retire, having reached the mandatory age of 70. 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. Joh Bjelke-Petersen admitted to choosing Campbell as a “compromise candidate” to Justice Douglas and his own preferred Chief Justice, Dormer Andrews. The retiring Chief Justice declared that he had nothing against Campbell personally, but that he found the treatment of Douglas “unjust and unsatisfactory”.
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. He was also noted as having contributed significantly to the modernisation of the Court in Queensland during his time as Chief Justice.
Senate since 1963, 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. 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 honorary doctorate of law to Premier
Bjelke-Petersen
.
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. 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.
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 when The Australian
newspaper in March featured a front page article detailing the threat by State Opposition leader Nev Warburton
to ask Governor Campbell to dismiss the Bjelke-Petersen ministry over allegations of illegal conduct by the Government. 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. 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. After having approached five ministers about resigning from their offices and being refused by each one, the Premier returned to Campbell on 24 November and requested the termination of the commissions of three of the five ministers, to which Campbell agreed. While the government's problems were already serious, the difficulty for Campbell began on 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. 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”. 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, however there were also fears that the Premier might advise Campbell to dissolve Parliament and call elections. 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. It was Bjelke-Petersen's eventual resignation, effective from 1 December, that ended the crisis, with Campbell receiving the subsequent praise of many in the media for his handling of the undesirable situation.
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 framework of the office and numerous historical accounts of different situations involving vice-regal figures 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 official opening and would have been capable of performing any of the functions of the Crown should the government have wished.
's push for an Australian republic in 1993 by writing to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph
. 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".
in 1979. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia
(AC) in 1989. On 1 January 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal
.
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Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(4 March 1921 – 4 September 2004) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n judge, administrator and governor. He was a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland
Supreme Court of Queensland
The Supreme Court of Queensland, which is based at the Law Courts Complex, is the superior court for the Australian State of Queensland and sits around the middle of the Australian court hierarchy...
, Chancellor of the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
, and Governor of Queensland
Governors of Queensland
The Governor of Queensland is the representative in the state of Queensland of the Queen of Australia. The Governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the national level....
.
Background and early life
Campbell was born in Burringbar, northern New South WalesNew South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, to Archie Eric Gordon Campbell and Leila Mary née Murphy. 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. Leila Campbell died unexpectedly, leaving Walter and his brothers to spend a considerable amount of time with their mother's parents in northern NSW.
The death of his mother had interrupted his early education at a Christian Brothers
Congregation of Christian Brothers
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...
' convent in Toowoomba and led to Campbell continuing his studies at a college in Lismore
Lismore, New South Wales
Lismore is a subtropical town in northeastern New South Wales, Australia. Lismore is the main population centre in the City of Lismore local government area. Lismore is a regional centre in the Northern Rivers region of the State.-History:...
, NSW. Campbell completed his education at Downlands College
Downlands College
Downlands College, officially Downlands Sacred Heart College, is a private, secondary, coeducational, day and boarding school in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. Founded by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1931, the College began as a boarding school for boys with a total enrolment of...
, Toowoomba, becoming the College's first Open Scholar in the late 1930s, having already been named dux of the College twice and earning the highest grade in Queensland for Senior Latin.
University and military service
Campbell attended the University of QueenslandUniversity of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
from 1940 with an interruption to his studies the following year to take up service in the Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
(RAAF). In his first year at the University of Queensland, Campbell became editor of the student paper Semper Floreat
Semper Floreat
Semper Floreat is the student newspaper of the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. It has been published continuously by the University of Queensland Union since 1932, when it began as a fortnightly newsletter of only a few pages, produced by one editor...
. He graduated in 1948 with first class honours in Law in 1948, having already gained a Master of Arts the previous year. He passed his pilot's examination at Amberley
Amberley
-Places:In Australia:* Amberley, Queensland, near Ipswich** RAAF Base AmberleyIn Canada:* Amberley, OntarioIn New Zealand:* Amberley, New Zealand, in north CanterburyIn the United Kingdom:* Amberley, Gloucestershire, England...
Air Base on 7 December 1941 and was assigned to the 67th Reserve Squadron of the RAAF, which patrolled Australia's eastern coast. He became a Flight Instructor and was based in Tasmania, badly injuring his knee in a biplane crash. After his recovery, the RAAF put Campbell in command of a Liberator
B-24 Liberator
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator was an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and a small number of early models were sold under the name LB-30, for Land Bomber...
Base in the Darling Downs.
Legal career
Campbell was admitted to the Bar in 1948 and became a Queen's CounselQueen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1960. His practice took him as high in the legal world as the Privy Council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, before which he appeared on several occasions. He became a member of the Law Faculty Board at the University of Queensland in 1954. Campbell himself recalled that when he entered the legal profession “there were only about seventy barristers in private practice in Queensland”, 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 to 1967. As a matter of some historical irony, Campbell represented Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG , was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, a period that saw considerable economic development in the state...
in a failed High Court
High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
appeal against the Australian Taxation Office
Australian Taxation Office
The Australian Taxation Office is an Australian Government statutory agency and the principal revenue collection body for the Australian Government. The ATO has responsibility for administering the Australian federal taxation system and superannuation legislation...
in 1959.
Judiciary
In 1967, Campbell gained a position on the bench of the Supreme Court of QueenslandSupreme Court of Queensland
The Supreme Court of Queensland, which is based at the Law Courts Complex, is the superior court for the Australian State of Queensland and sits around the middle of the Australian court hierarchy...
. 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.
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.
In 1982, the incumbent Chief and Puisne
Puisne
Puisne is a legal term of art used mainly in British English meaning "inferior in rank." It is pronounced like the word puny, and the word, so spelled, has become an ordinary adjective meaning weak or undersized.The judges and barons of the common law courts at...
Justices of Queensland were scheduled to retire, having reached the mandatory age of 70. 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. Joh Bjelke-Petersen admitted to choosing Campbell as a “compromise candidate” to Justice Douglas and his own preferred Chief Justice, Dormer Andrews. The retiring Chief Justice declared that he had nothing against Campbell personally, but that he found the treatment of Douglas “unjust and unsatisfactory”.
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. He was also noted as having contributed significantly to the modernisation of the Court in Queensland during his time as Chief Justice.
Chancellor
Having been a member of the University of QueenslandUniversity of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
Senate since 1963, 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. There was also controversy in this period when the government forced the University publishers to withdraw the second volume of Ross Fitzgerald
Ross Fitzgerald
Ross Fitzgerald is an Australian academic, historian, novelist, secularist, and political commentator.Author of 35 books, in 2009 Professor Fitzgerald co-authored "Made in Queensland: A New History", published by University of Queensland Press and also "Under the Influence, a history of alcohol in...
's History of Queensland
History of Queensland
The human history of Queensland encompasses both a long Aboriginal Australian presence as well as the more recent European settlement. Before being charted and claimed for England by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770, the north-eastern Australian region was explored by Dutch, Portuguese and French...
, and the university awarded an honorary doctorate of law to Premier
Premiers of Queensland
Before the 1890s, there was no developed party system in Queensland. Political affiliation labels before that time indicate a general tendency only. Before the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, political parties were more akin to parliamentary factions, and were fluid, informal and...
Bjelke-Petersen
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG , was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, a period that saw considerable economic development in the state...
.
Governor
Campbell succeeded Sir James RamsayJames Ramsay
James Ramsay may refer to:* James Ramsay , Bishop of Ross* James Ramsay , Anglican minister and abolitionist* James Graham Ramsay , North Carolina politician...
as Governor of Queensland
Governors of Queensland
The Governor of Queensland is the representative in the state of Queensland of the Queen of Australia. The Governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the national level....
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. 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.
This tradition of controversy involving Campbell and the government came to crisis in 1987 when there was internal strife within the National Party
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
between Bjelke-Petersen and his cabinet which almost caused a constitutional crisis
Constitutional crisis
A constitutional crisis is a situation that the legal system's constitution or other basic principles of operation appear unable to resolve; it often results in a breakdown in the orderly operation of government...
in Queensland governance. There had already been murmurs in early 1987 of a vice-regal intervention in Queensland politics when The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
newspaper in March featured a front page article detailing the threat by State Opposition leader Nev Warburton
Nev Warburton
Neville George Warburton was a Queensland politician, who served as leader of the opposition from 1984 to 1988, and as a minister in the Goss Ministry from 1989 to 1992.-Early career:...
to ask Governor Campbell to dismiss the Bjelke-Petersen ministry over allegations of illegal conduct by the Government. 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. 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. After having approached five ministers about resigning from their offices and being refused by each one, the Premier returned to Campbell on 24 November and requested the termination of the commissions of three of the five ministers, to which Campbell agreed. While the government's problems were already serious, the difficulty for Campbell began on 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. 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”. 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, however there were also fears that the Premier might advise Campbell to dissolve Parliament and call elections. 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. It was Bjelke-Petersen's eventual resignation, effective from 1 December, that ended the crisis, with Campbell receiving the subsequent praise of many in the media for his handling of the undesirable situation.
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 framework of the office and numerous historical accounts of different situations involving vice-regal figures 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 official opening and would have been capable of performing any of the functions of the Crown should the government have wished.
Retirement
After seven years as Governor, Campbell retired in July 1992. He did not retire quietly, continuing to speak at various functions and publicly opposing Paul KeatingPaul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
's push for an Australian republic in 1993 by writing to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
. 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".
Personal
Campbell married Georgina Pearce in 1942, and fathered three children, Deborah, Peter and Wallace Campbell. He resided with his family in Clayfield, Brisbane while a member of the Supreme Court judiciary and retired to Ascot after leaving Government House. He died at age 83, in his home on 4 September 2004 after a short period of illness.Honours
Walter Campbell was appointed a Knight BachelorKnight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1979. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(AC) in 1989. On 1 January 2001, he was awarded the Centenary Medal
Centenary Medal
The Centenary Medal is an award created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the Centenary of Federation of Australia and to honour people who have made a contribution to Australian society or government...
.