Senator JOHNSTON (7:26 PM) —Tonight I want to pay tribute to a professional colleague and friend who passed away earlier this year. Brian John Singleton QC was a barrister and solicitor and a proctor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia for more than 40 years. Brian was educated at Aquinas College in Perth and was a vital part of a tight-knit legal fraternity practising from 524 Hay Street, Perth, predominantly in the areas of crime and personal injury.

I first met Brian Singleton QC when, as a young solicitor in Kalgoorlie on the eastern goldfields of Western Australia, I briefed him to defend a client on serious criminal charges. On that occasion, as on many subsequent occasions, Brian accepted my brief in an obliging, professional and engaging way, notwithstanding it then lacked many of the formalities and had obviously been prepared by an inexperienced, raw and, with the benefit of hindsight, a very green legal practitioner—namely, me. And so it was in 1981 that I found a mentor and a friend who would over the next 20 years provide solid guidance and support not only to me but to several other solicitors practising in regional towns and centres throughout Western Australia. I refer to my colleagues in Geraldton, Albany, Esperance and Broome, to name but a few.

To retain Brian Singleton QC as defence counsel was to retain someone with a special commitment and dedication not only to the client and his or her best interests but also to his instructing solicitor. Brian’s ability and nature were such that I briefed him on dozens of matters over the following 20 years. These briefs were not just on matters of crime, for his forensic and cross-examination skills were exceptional, versatile and relevant to courtroom litigation across the broad criminal and civil subject fields.

Such was Brian’s capacity that a Kalgoorlie jury—and, for that matter, any jury that he addressed—at some point in the trial were acquainted with the knowledge that he and his family lived and grew up in the back streets of a proud working-class town called Boulder in Western Australia, a deeply working-class town adjacent to Kalgoorlie on the eastern goldfields. Needless to say, he was greatly successful in establishing in a very short time an exceptional rapport with juries which, more often than not, culminated in a two-word finale to the proceedings. Of course, those two words were ‘not guilty’.

I reflect on a professional life that was rich and filled with success and achievement, as, may I say, was his family life. Together we defended many men and women on the most serious of charges, frequently of a gruesome and grave factual genesis. All of these men and women received a defence or a plea that more than answered and met the most fundamental entitlement of every member of our Australian society—namely, to have and to receive justice. I was greatly shocked and saddened earlier this year to hear of Brian’s death at the age of, I think, 71. Having known him as I did, I shall seek to live out my life extolling, and abiding by, the principles and virtues of a defender in the vein, disclosing the courage and skill of Brian Singleton QC.

In this adjournment debate, I wish to express my sincere sympathy and sorrow to Brian’s wife, Bev, and to all of his family, whom many of us in the bush came to know through Brian’s capacity to relate their many accomplishments and achievements through his stories and anecdotes, which were always of great humour and of great affection. I know that they will miss him terribly. I share their sense of great loss. He was a great man and a very fine barrister.