The Tim Carmody Affair Book Launch

Join journalist and author Madonna King who will be in-conversation with co-authors Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Gabrielle Appleby and Andrew Lynch discussing The Tim Carmody Affair: Australia's Greatest Judicial Crisis.

When Tim Carmody was appointed Chief Justice of Queensland by Premier Campbell Newman in 2014, he had been Chief Magistrate for only nine months.

It proved to be the most controversial judicial appointment in Australia’s history.

Carmody’s elevation plunged the Supreme Court and the legal profession into a bitter conflict with the government and with Carmody himself. How did he come to be appointed to such a significant position? What can we learn from this saga about the fragile relationships between politics and the courts? The Tim Carmody Affair places the full story of Carmody’s damaging and divisive tenure in context, and identifies key reforms that could prevent this kind of controversy in the future.

‘A spellbinding and alarming account of one of Australia’s great judicial dramas that ruptured the legal profession and the courts. The Newman Government’s appointment of Tim Carmody as Queensland’s Chief Justice is a story of patronage, betrayal, leaking, and political folly. Brilliant and revealing.’ Richard Ackland 

REBECCA ANANIAN-WELSH is a lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland. She has published widely on the separation of powers in Australia, with a particular focus on anti-bikie laws. She has also undertaken major research projects on judicial independence for the Judicial Conference of Australia and co-edited the book Judicial Independence in Australia: Contemporary challenges, future directions.

GABRIELLE APPLEBY is associate professor of law at the University of New South Wales and Co-Director of the Judiciary Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. She has previously worked for the Queensland Crown Solicitor and the Supreme Court of Queensland. Her research focuses on the regulation of the judicial branch of government and the role and ethics of government lawyers. She has co-authored several books, including The Role of the Solicitor-General: Negotiating law, politics and the public interest and Australian Public Law.

ANDREW LYNCH is professor of law at the University of New South Wales and Co-Director of the Judiciary Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. He has researched and published on the topics of judicial decision-making on the High Court and judicial appointments reform. He has co-authored several books, including Inside Australia’s Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials and Blackshield & Williams’ Australian Constitutional Law and Theory, and has written extensively on the Carmody affair.