Editor: Barry JonesPublisher: ScribeReviewer: Matthew Coe
On 1 August 2022, the Speaker of the Queensland Parliament hosted an event commemorating 100 years since the abolition of the death penalty in Queensland. The Bar Association of Queensland and the Queensland Law Society joined with a number of other organisations to make this commemoration event possible.
The program included a keynote address by the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG, discussions with national and international figures opposed to the death penalty, and an analysis of the events leading up to 31 July 1922 (the day the death penalty was abolished in Queensland).
Following an excellent discussion between Kerry O’Brien and Barry Jones AC (with Jones appearing via video link), the event also launched the 2022 edition of Barry Jones’ 1968 book, The Penalty is Death, a collection of the best writing on the philosophies and arguments surrounding capital punishment.
Barry Jones has been a high-profile writer, teacher, lawyer, politician and social activist for decades. He is a former member of the Victorian and Australian Parliaments and he campaigned against the death penalty in the 1960s.
When Jones’ book was first published in 1968, a little over one year had passed after the death of Ronald Joseph Ryan, the last person hanged in Australia.
Jones dedicates the book to politicians, judges, lawyers, journalists, teachers and opinion leaders in retentionist nations,making it an appeal for them all to reflect on the shortcomings of capital punishment as a sentencing option.
The book acknowledges that the existence of the new edition is entirely due to the initiative, drive and encouragement of Stephen Keim SC, himself a committed advocate against capital punishment.
The collection is broken into five parts — a general overview, the case against capital punishment, the case for it, a collection of eyewitness accounts of executions, and a section on the recent fate of the death penalty in the English speaking world. The last section is written by Jones, himself.
The case for abolition includes arguments from Cesare Beccaria, Charles Dickens, Clarence Darrow, extracts from Thorsten Sellin’s book, The Death Penalty, and a translation of Albert Camus’ Reflections on the Guillotine, among other writings.
The arguments in favour of abolishing the death penalty often traverse similar terrain. Some appeal to logic, and others to more human feelings. Some acknowledge the difficulties involved in reaching a settled position on capital punishment.
Throughout the book, there is frequent reference to the alleged deterrent effect of capital punishment; the alleged need for capital punishment as a remedy that allows murderers to fully atone for their crimes; and economic arguments in favour of executions. The case against the death penalty generally outlines these arguments and, persuasively, resists them.
In relation to the retention case, Jones records an editor’s dilemma. Specifically, the difficulty he had in assembling a publishable collection of strongly retentionist material for the first edition in 1968. As a result, there are fewer contributions in favour of retention. They include arguments from Edward J Allen, J Edgar Hoover and an editorial from the Geelong Advertiser.
Of the pro-capital punishment advocates, the most persuasive are those that invoke the experiences of victims, their relatives, and those working with them in law enforcement to solve the most serious crimes. Regardless of one’s personal views, in the case of the most heinous crimes, it can be difficult to sustain a view that all criminals in all cases deserve their chance at rehabilitation or redemption.
The section on eyewitness accounts is brief and describes hangings and guillotine executions. These accounts imagine the anticipation, certainty and hopelessness which condemned prisoners must feel before their sentences are carried out. Mercifully, the book spares readers the macabre details of the more creative forms of capital punishment that have been available in the past.
The book concludes with an exploration of the recent fate of the death penalty in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, the United States and Ireland.
The most comprehensive discussion in this section relates to the campaign against the death penalty in Victoria in the 1960s. Jones’ discussion of the Bolte government’s reasons for not commuting the death sentence against Robert Joseph Ryan is interesting and insightful.
Overall, The Penalty is Death is an excellent starting point for understanding some of the historical arguments surrounding capital punishment.
For Australians, these arguments may now appear to be moot. Indeed, Jones confirms the prohibition on the death penalty was extended with the Commonwealth Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Act 2010, to prevent the reintroduction of death penalties in Australian states and territories.
But capital punishment persists in other parts of the world and has the potential to touch Australian lives. Recent high-profile campaigns against the death penalty in Singapore, Iran and other parts of the world make it clear the death penalty remains an important topic of debate and something that can impact upon Australians.
More than 50 years after its first publication, Jones’ book is still a valuable resource for advocates against the death penalty across the world.
Author: Krista Vane-Tempest Publisher: NewSouth Publishing Reviewer: Matthew Coe
The author, Krista Vane-Tempest, grew up in country New South Wales and studied law, English, history and politics at the Australian National University. She has previously worked as a lawyer. She is also Edith Blake’s great-niece.
Her book tells the story of Edith Blake (Edie), a young Sydney woman who attends nurse training, immediately before World War I, and her subsequent deployment abroad to help with the British war efforts.
The book is based on Edie’s letters to her family and includes many excerpts from her correspondence. The story is written, conversationally, much in the style of historical fiction, and owes a great deal to the writing of its title character.
Readers are told 18,000 young Australian men were conscripted to serve abroad in the first month after the United Kingdom declared war. Australia never declared war, itself. It was simply understood that, where Britain went, so would go Australia.
There is no discussion of the otherwise bewildering reasons for Australia’s participation in the war which centered firmly around European enmities and, ostensibly, began with the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Bosnian Serb. The actual causes continue to be debated among historians.
In this respect, Vane-Tempest’s focus is more personal.
The story charts Edie’s travels from Sydney to the battlefields of the Middle East and Europe where she witnesses, first-hand, the horrors of war.
Working for the British military alongside British and Australian medical staff, Edie nurses soldiers suffering from a range of treatable illnesses and disease and severe physical trauma.
Her letters attest to her professionalism, sense of duty and pride in serving those around her. She is frequently pleased for the chance to work in the busiest and most challenging wards.
Edie faces her adversities with minimal “grousing”, with her attitude seemingly matched by many of her fellow nurses and medical staff. Among them all is a sense they are contributing to something bigger than themselves and that, whatever the risks, they are glad to be doing their part.
In their free time Edie and her friends make the best of their experiences. Moments are taken to enjoy the sunsets of Cairo and Alexandria, attend social gatherings, appreciate the food and presents sent from home, meet relatives and even to have snow fights on hospital ships.
Inevitably, Edie tires of some aspects of war but, always, remains committed to her work, her friends and family, and her military community.
Edie’s account provides a personal perspective of World War I that steps back from the violence of the frontlines to acknowledge the critical role of medical staff during war.
Vane-Tempest dispenses with most of the abstractions of academic history which, sometimes, make the past seem like a series of inevitable events, logically connected in some kind of predictable way.
Edie’s story is told, primarily, in the direction it was lived, looking forward into an uncertain and dimly lit future. Where the author does intervene, it is only to offer necessary context.
Readers will take their own lessons from a story like Edie’s. But what may persist is the way she succeeded in fitting so much into her life during a period of such upheaval, when doing so must have taken so much effort.
It is apparent Edie threw herself into her work with little regard to the personal risks of war. She prioritised her strong bonds with family and friends and accepted her fate being deployed in postings across the world. In this way, she seems to have lived a full and satisfying life, despite the chaos surrounding her.
Vane-Tempest has taken the letters of her great-aunt, and her knowledge of World War I, to create an excellent memoir of a woman whose story would have, otherwise, remained little known.
She reminds readers of the thousands of similar stories that must have been told after the war and of the toll taken on so many. In this way, Edith Blake’s War provides a powerful way of putting our everyday difficulties into perspective and to reflect on the consequences that face ordinary citizens when leaders make the grave decision to go to war.
Authors: Ruth Balint and Julie KalmanPublisher: NewSouth BooksReviewer: Matthew Coe
Smuggled – An Illegal History of Journeys to Australia is a short collection of (often moving) stories about people who have managed to settle in Australia, and other parts of the world, following journeys from abroad.
Authors, Ruth Balint and Julie Kalman, are Australian historians with interests in refugees and migration.
Balint is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New South Wales whose grandmother was a Jewish refugee. She has previously written about displaced persons and Australian border protection. She will release her book Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe in November 2021.
Kalman is an Associate Professor of History at Monash University with interests in the effects of Jewish emancipation on the non-Jewish world, across French, British, and Mediterranean settings. She is also a child of European migrants. She is completing a book tentatively titled The Kings of Algiers.
Their book includes several stories (mostly sourced from interviews) about refugee journeys to Australia over the last 80 years.
The stories touch on events arising from the Holocaust, communism in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and conflicts in Vietnam, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Burma (Myanmar).
Some of the stories are from well-known Australians – television presenters, artists, writers, doctors and actors. Les Murray (the late SBS sports broadcaster) and Professor Munjed Al Muderis (the celebrated surgeon and human rights activist) are, perhaps, the most high profile. Each story involves people smugglers. One is written from a people smuggler’s perspective.
The smugglers of these stories include conscientious diplomats, corrupt bureaucrats, brave teenagers and opportunistic business people. One story briefly references sympathetic soldiers who declined to raise the alarm or open fire on a young family from their watchtowers in the dead of night.
Along the way, the smugglers are variously described as heroes, opportunists, entrepreneurs and beloved uncles. Some stories describe fond and lasting relationships forged between the smugglers and the smuggled.
But the authors are careful not to invite too many Oskar Schindler style comparisons.
The more troubling practices of people smuggling are acknowledged. The lies about vessel size and sea worthiness, the partially delivered promises and the ongoing need to turn a dollar all get a mention. The authors note “For as long as there have been established smuggling routes, it would seem, smugglers have made little distinction between things and people.” Other complicated realities are further discussed in a contribution from Behrooz Boochani at the end of the book.
In their introduction, Balint and Kalman acknowledge the cynical view some Australian politicians have taken to refugees and those who would assist them over the last 25 years. But they go further, reminding readers that such ideas have long been a recurring theme in Australian public life, going back to the end of the Second World War (and much earlier).
Through their stories, the authors advance the case for a more sympathetic public discussion of refugee issues.
They offer a range of perspectives on the risks taken by those forced to engage with people smugglers to escape hostile and intolerant regimes.
Their book vividly describes perilous journeys people have taken, despite knowing the risks. Reading these accounts, it is not difficult to understand the motivations behind people’s decisions to flee their homelands.
It is an effective choice for the authors to make their case with personal stories. What’s most impressive when reading them is that, in spite of the tragic events these people have seen and the challenges they have overcome, they maintain an impressive level of gratitude for their lives.
Late in the book, it is acknowledged that this attitude is unlikely to be matched among refugees who did not make it. It is, perhaps, because the authors wanted to offer hopeful perspectives on refugees that the fate of such people is not more fully explored.
For the most part, the authors keep their book brief and accessible. Apart from a small academic detour in the early parts of the final chapter, the book is clearly and persuasively written, and the stories are allowed to speak for themselves.
Balint and Kalman have succeeded in offering an overview of the diverse and complex personal experiences of refugees coming to Australia, and a helpful perspective for thinking about refugees and those who would assist them.
This book will find an audience with those already sympathetic to the challenges of displaced people and who may be concerned about Australia’s approach to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. But it is also worthwhile reading for anyone who suspects there might be more to the stories of Australian refugees than slogans and headlines.
Authors: Belinda Bennett and Ian FreckeltonPublisher: The Federation PressReviewer: Matthew Coe
After two years of lockdowns, restrictions and near inescapable media coverage, many people have developed an intolerance for stories about pandemics.
But, for those inoculated to such things, the high dose of COVID-19 related information contained in the recent book, Pandemics, Public Health Emergencies and Government Powers, might be useful.
The book is a collection of 21 essays relating to Australia’s Federal and State government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The editors, Belinda Bennett and Ian Freckelton, note in the acknowledgements that the purpose of the book was to prepare a work that analysed the diverse legal issues of the pandemic from an Australian perspective.
The collection includes contributions from 36 authors, all well credentialed in their fields.
The editors are both lawyers. This, along with the public sector focus, means the book will probably make most sense to lawyers and those familiar with the inner workings of Federal or State governments.
To anyone who has so much as walked past a news source since March 2020, much of the recent history will be familiar. But the essays go into more detail about COVID-19 events and decisions than most news reports. In this way, readers will get a sense of deja vu, while also learning a few new things.
The collection is broken into four main Parts. Part A – COVID-19 in Context; Part B – The Role of Government; Part C – Legal Responses to the Impact of the Pandemic; and Part D – Health Care.
Each essay can be read, alone, but grouping them by theme creates a nice continuity.
Part A considers rights and powers during a pandemic, management of the COVID-19 pandemic and the legal and regulatory response to previous pandemics in Australia. The essay on the development of public and administrative law relating to pandemics provides a helpful history of the regulation of major outbreaks in the past as well as today.
Part B considers Federal and State Government powers during pandemics, government inquiries and reports, the government response to accessing vaccines, human rights and other issues.
The discussion of the reasons the Prime Minister’s National Cabinet was unable to function like an ordinary Cabinet will be informative for anyone unfamiliar with government, the relationships between the States and the Commonwealth and the formalities surrounding Cabinet.
Part B also includes a discussion of practical matters like the use of face masks and the Federal Government’s COVID safe app and the related privacy issues.
Part C discusses matters of economic hardship payments during COVID, COVID related workplace health and safety issues, contract issues during COVID, parenting and the administration of justice.
Part D focuses on health care issues, considering patient rights, gender related issues, first nations health, aged care, health research and end of life decision making.
With contributions from lawyers and academics in both science and the humanities, this is not a legal text book. Notwithstanding this, it includes helpful tables of cases and legislation and a few specific discussions of the law. Readers investigating some of the questions considered by the book may be in luck.
Pandemics, Public Health Emergencies and Government Powers is an early attempt to understand some of the policy and legal issues that have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. It surveys a wide range of issues that have been identified and considered by government, lawyers, academics and others since March 2020.
If you have not already overdosed on COVID-19 and are still interested in gaining more insight into Australia’s public and legal response, this collection may be worth your time.
Matthew CoeChambers26 April 2022
