Senator the Hon Helen Coonan

Minister for Communications,

Information Technology

and the Arts

Law: A pathway to success

Occasional Address
to the Law Faculty

University of Sydney

Sydney

Friday 20 May 2005

Good afternoon. Chancellor Justice Santo, Vice Chancellor Gavin Brown, Members of the Senate, graduates, family and friends.

It is a pleasure to be back at my Alma Mater today to help you mark the occasion of your graduation from the great University of Sydney. It is an auspicious day for you all and the hard work you have put in up to this point deserves sincere congratulations.

While not wanting to undervalue your achievement in getting here today, I would also like to pay tribute to your parents and families who are no doubt marking this special occasion with you.

Don’t underestimate how much their support – both emotional and financial – has helped you get to this point. So, congratulations must go to them too.

As the next generation of lawyers, no doubt you are asking yourselves: What does my degree set me up to do? What will my career path be? Will my law degree be the foundation upon which I can build a fulfilling life both professionally and personally?

The answer to the last question, I believe, is an unqualified ‘yes’.

Of course the pathways and opportunities open to law graduates vary enormously.

The message I would like you to take from my remarks this afternoon is that the law provides diverse and flexible pathways to success.

I can say from my own experience that law is a dynamic qualification that allows you to push the boundaries of traditional legal practice.

It is a field where you can pursue your passions and your interests – in fact the only limitation may be your own imagination.

To illustrate this I want to draw briefly on my own varied background.

As a child born and bred in rural Australia, getting a university education for me involved leaving home and family, moving to Sydney and being awarded a Commonwealth scholarship.

Going to law school made me one of a rare breed indeed in those days – a ‘law school chick’.

But the infinite possibilities of what could be achieved with a law degree only dawned on me after I qualified as a solicitor.

I began to represent groups of people, particularly women and children, where the law was basically undeveloped and unresponsive to important personal and public policy issues including domestic violence, reproductive rights, domestic property rights and sexual abuse.

Anti-discrimination law had not been heard of and affirmative action was one of those outrageous concepts that had people writing to the newspapers complaining about such radical ideas.

It was fertile ground for a young woman lawyer and an early introduction to the power of the law as a tool for social justice and as a catalyst for change.

Those early years of practice encouraged me to start my own legal practice - on my own terms.

I was not enthused by the more traditional path of working one’s way up through the ranks of a large law firm.

Ironically, my own firm, which grew over a period of about eight years to include a partner and a number of employed solicitors, was eventually part of a successful merger with a large Sydney firm - so I did make partner, but by a lateral route!

My legal career then shifted focus to commercial work with a stint in New York and then a number of years back in Sydney at the commercial bar where I was fortunate to be briefed in complex and interesting work that simply set me up to later handle difficult portfolios as a Minister.

Loving the law as I do, I am often asked - why go into politics?

The answer is that I believed I could follow my interests and use my professional experience to best effect in the political arena.

And my legal training has underpinned my approach to many difficult issues.

In my previous portfolio as the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Revenue, my extensive practical experience in insolvency and corporate restructuring came in very handy in dealing with the fallout from the collapse of the insurance giant HIH.

Work in insurance allowed me to gather together the States and Territories and restructure tort law to meet the crisis in public and professional indemnity insurance when insurance became unavailable or unaffordable.

Now as a Cabinet Minister I have carriage of some of the most challenging areas of policy for this fourth term of the Government.

This includes restructuring the regulatory environment in telecommunications - which calls on all my experience in competition law, crafting media and broadcasting reforms as well as wrestling with issues as diverse as how to control child pornography on the Internet.

So, you get the picture – law is simply an invaluable base no matter whether you wish to practice, go into banking or the corporate sector, business, the public service or the diplomatic service.

There are so many new and evolving areas of potential legal practice that require a regulatory framework to meet acceptable industry standards and to protect consumers.

We are now dealing with a borderless world where technology can either oppress you or be your friend.

And this is completely revolutionising the way we do business, the way we govern ourselves and the legal framework within which we operate.

In my own portfolio of Communications for instance, web sites are changing our understanding of the media and the way we can regulate defamation and sub-judice contempt.

The music industry is grappling with how to legally control a distribution model that involves no physical product and cuts out most of their existing supply chain.

Film producers are trying to use the law to protect their revenues at a time when pirates are distributing their product world wide on the day of release, if not before.

And entire corporations are being built on their ability to control their intellectual property and a reliance on the strength of a portfolio of patents. These are certainly challenging, but exciting, times.

Obviously the fertile field you will plough will be very different to mine but I believe that there are some common guiding principles that are as true now for you as they were and are for me.

The first is stick to what you believe in . Your own personal moral compass will anchor you against self doubt and will stop you being carried away by the tide when your actions may be right but unpopular.

The second is ‘be bold’. The law is a bulwark against injustice. It is a tool to safeguard and protect the weak and the marginalised as well as to adjudicate the rights and interests of the well off.

The legal system is, in my view, not best served by timid practitioners. Open your eyes to the possibilities, question the orthodox and be thrilled by what you can achieve as you develop your skill.

The third guiding principle should be to give something back. With your ability and talents comes great responsibility.

There remains an abiding concern that despite legal aid, many Australians fall between stools and cannot afford access to justice. The problems of delay, technicality and expense are well known.

It will take the ingenuity of tomorrow’s practitioners to each do your best to provide the Australian community with an affordable and efficient legal system to resolve disputes in a fair and just society.

In very many ways, access to justice is one of the best indications of a civilised society.

This afternoon I have ranged widely and personally to share with you some of my experience as a lawyer, Parliamentarian and Minister of the Crown.

To you it may seem an improbable mix of the practical and the visionary. For that I make no apology.

I have wanted to convey to you what opportunity, progress and the relentless search of the human spirit to do better/ will do for you if you take up the challenge.

Oscar Wilde described it thus:

“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”

And so, graduating class of 2005, the future is now in your hands.

Good luck and party hard tonight!