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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-29 Daily Xml
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McGEE, MR EUGENE

The Hon. S.G. WADE (15:54): I move:

That this council—

1. Considers that the legal system has failed to effectively deal with the conduct of Mr Eugene McGee in relation to the death of Mr Ian Humphrey on 30 November 2003 and that public confidence in the legal system has suffered as a result.

2. Calls on the Attorney-General to exercise his powers under the Legal Practitioners Act 1981 to refer Mr McGee to the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal to consider whether his behaviour constitutes unprofessional or unsatisfactory conduct.

After more than eight years, significant community concern persists in relation to the role of Mr Eugene McGee in the hit-and-run death of cyclist Ian Humphrey on 30 November 2003. Nick Xenophon, once a member of this council and now a senator of the commonwealth parliament, has consistently highlighted deficiencies in the handling of the case by police, prosecutors and courts. Public confidence in our justice system has been undermined by these events.

Two recent episodes of Australian Story focused on the death of Mr Humphrey, the role of Mr McGee in that death, and the campaign by Ian's widow Di to try to get some justice for Ian. It was powerful television, and I would like to quote from some of the statements made in the program. Di Gilchrist is quoted as saying:

Here we were, two trials and a royal commission later and nothing had changed. Everything was still the same. It was still the system saying, 'He did nothing wrong, it's okay.' As far as criminal proceedings go, that was the end of the road—there was nowhere else to go. The only hurdle I was yet still jumping was that with the Legal Practitioners' Conduct Board.

Senator Nick Xenophon was interviewed and said:

For a whole range of reasons, including public confidence in the legal profession, I don't think Mr McGee should be practising. He should at the very least be suspended for a significant period of time...This case highlights how badly the legal system can let people down. This family's been let down, the family of Ian Humphrey have been let down fundamentally by the legal system at every turn.

The member for Croydon in another place, a former South Australian attorney-general from 2003 to 2010, is quoted as saying:

From my opinion, I think the public of South Australia is angry about the Eugene McGee case, because they think it's an example of the lawyers acting as a club and protecting one of their own. I think they've got a pretty strong case.

In the program, a protester was interviewed as part of a Channel 7 news broadcast from 2011. The protester said:

And there seems to be one law for a lawyer who's got mates in the cops, and another law for common people, and that definitely needs to be rectified.

The program ends with the caption, 'South Australia's new Attorney-General has decided against referring the case to the Lawyers' Disciplinary Tribunal.'

In spite of the action already taken against Mr McGee, it is important that all reasonable steps are taken to hold Mr McGee to account and ensure that such issues are adequately addressed through the justice system in the future. Last year I received legal advice that raised significant doubt as to the correctness of the reasoning adopted by the Legal Practitioners' Conduct Board and recommended that charges should be laid against Mr McGee before the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal in relation to both unprofessional conduct and unsatisfactory conduct.

While the Legal Practitioners' Conduct Board recommended no action against Mr McGee, the Attorney-General can still refer the matter to the more senior body, the Legal Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal. Given the efflux of time, under section 82 of the Legal Practitioners Act 1981 only the Attorney-General is legally able to refer this matter to the tribunal. In April 2011 Senator Xenophon and I called for Attorney-General Rau to refer it to the tribunal.

The Attorney-General issued a statement on 8 December 2011 announcing that following advice from the Crown Solicitor's Office that 'it was open to the board to take the view that unprofessional conduct could not be proved in the circumstances' he had decided not to refer. The implication is that it was also open to the board to take a contrary view and, accordingly, for the Attorney-General to refer the matter to them so that they could form a view. On that day I called for the Attorney to release his advice. Former attorney-general Michael Atkinson and Senator Xenophon have both recently called for the case to be referred.

In moving this motion today I urge the council to favourably consider it and support it. In my view it is very important that this parliament joins with the South Australian community in urging this referral. It is important that we protect public confidence in the justice system and I believe that, in this case, it is important that, to that end, we refer the Eugene McGee matter to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.

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