RAHS Day Lecture – Historical Implications of the Life of Sir Gerard Brennan

Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 3 June 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm

Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)

Cost: Free

Event Description:

Sir Gerard Brennan’s life provides a powerful lens through which to view the transformation of Australia during the twentieth century – and it illuminates two compelling paradoxes. The first is how one man was both shaped by history and played a crucial role in shaping it. The second concerns the judiciary itself: its twin responsibilities to secure the legitimacy of law by ensuring it faithfully reflects society’s fundamental values, and simultaneously to guide society through changed circumstances.

Brennan’s Queensland Catholic upbringing, his father’s career in politics and on the Supreme Court, and his own experiences at the Bar during the Bjelke-Petersen era rooted him in a legal world still essentially British in orientation – yet those same experiences sharpened his conviction about what the Rule of Law truly demands of a civilised society. Moving to the federal sphere in the mid-1970s, as inaugural President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal he developed a distinctive and enduring approach to securing Administrative Justice. He joined the High Court in 1981 and in conjunction with the other judges, played a pivotal role in ‘Australianising’ the law – in parallel with the Australia Acts, the republican debate, and a broader search for national identity.

The talk focuses on three landmarks of that transformation: the Mabo judgment, which rewrote the nation’s relationship with its own past; Marion’s case, in which Brennan enunciated a compelling and profound legal approach to the protection of the dignity of people with disabilities; and the Constitution’s implied protection of political communication – a doctrine that continues to shape Australian public life. The underlying theme is that Brennan was no revolutionary. He believed in precedent, incremental change, and service. Yet this modest, traditional man – a Sunday-night volunteer at St Vincent de Paul – helped shape the law to secure a more just Australia. His life illustrates how History is often made by conservators, not crusaders.

About the speaker:

Jeff FitzGerald obtained an Honours degree in Law from Melbourne University and a PhD in the Sociology of Law from Northwestern University in the USA. He then taught Sociology and Legal Studies at La Trobe University, provided policy advice in the justice and governance areas in the Victorian Premier’s Department, and was Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Attorney-General’s Department. He then spent 10 years as Registrar at the University of Technology Sydney. Following his retirement at the end of 2006, he has acted as a consultant in the area of Higher Education governance and has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AustLII Foundation, which provides free online access to a very broad range of legal authorities, writings and other related material.