'If you have tasted injustice, you don't like it': Justice Michael Kirby lights up theatre
The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG entered one of Melbourne Law School's theatres to applause this month before delivering a personal keynote address, 'What is it like being a high court justice?'.
A queue of students waiting to enter the theatre stretched throughout the bottom floor of the law building. Students filled two overflow rooms to watch the live video stream.
Justice Kirby spoke on his ascent to the nation's highest court, how he approached his career's work, his infamous title as 'The Great Dissenter', and how his partner was denied similar allowances to the wives of his colleagues.
Click on the image above to watch Justice Kirby's May 2025 address at Melbourne Law School: 'What is it like being a justice of the High Court?'.
"If you have tasted injustice, you don't like it. And you don't like it, not just for gays, don't like it or women, don't like it for people of colour."
"We can be proud of our system that you may disagree with the judges. But you know they are not corrupt. They are serious about their duties. They have their values....no minister tells the justice of the High Court of Australia how to decide a case. I never got a phone call from a minister, never. It's important I tell you that. Never got a phone call from a union official, or from some other powerful industrial person. I sat there in that room with the lovely pine wood, and did it myself, and so did my colleagues, and that's a wonderful thing."
Above: Dean, Professor Michelle Foster welcomes Justice Kirby.
Justice Kirby was an Australian High Court justice from 1996 to 2009. He served as a Deputy President of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission (1975-83); Chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission (1975-84); Judge of the Federal Court of Australia (1983-4); President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal (1984-96); President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands (1995-96).
He was the first openly gay man to serve as a justice of the High Court.
During his visit to Melbourne Law School, Justice Kirby also met with editors of Melbourne Journal of International Law and with Melbourne University Law Students' Society Queer Directors, for a roundtable discussion called 'Speaking Out When its Hardest'.