From the Editor …

Welcome to the first online edition of Hearsay.

The President of the Association, Martin Daubney SC, has already written in this edition’s  ‘From the President’ of the resolutions made by the Council of the Association earlier this year to make Hearsay the official journal of record for the Association, as well of the migration of the publication to the Web.

While that means, of course, that a hard copy journal will no longer be published, as the President observed,  the move to a website provides much greater scope for live interaction between all members than anything that has gone before. A new edition will be published each month throughout the year and, although it will therefore be published less frequently than the PDF bulletin, it may be expected to be double the size in terms of content, as this edition attests.

In addition – and unlike its predecessor – once published, each edition will remain on the Web until the next edition is published; thus obviating the need to print off or otherwise save a copy of each issue. Individual articles may be printed as before – albeit more easily and quickly – but, now, they may also be emailed at the click of a button.

Among the many new features, the one that I hope will gain most acceptance is the Forum. If that hope is realised, it will ensure that the publication grows in worth during the month of its publication through the posting of comments about published articles as well as any other topics of interest. That is the real purpose of the Forum; to facilitate healthy debate amongst us for our mutual benefit.

Although the website will be open to the public, only registered members will be permitted to post in the Forum, but I urge each of you to register – a simple procedure – and thereby make full use of the facility.

Again as the President explained, the website is fully searchable by word, author or topic. Indeed, the search page will also extend, should you choose, to a full Google search. To date, only one of the previous 15 editions of Hearsay has been uploaded in searchable form – the balance may be located in the Archive in their PDF form – but, over the coming months, all previous editions will come online.

So far as the inclusion of content is concerned, you will find a similar philosophy to that which was adopted last year – in addition to news of current professional affairs, articles of real practical benefit to the most number of members are preferred. I hope though that you will find a little more balance this year with a number of lighter articles as well as a couple of innovations. Two bear mentioning.

First, in additon to summary notes and links to decisons of the Queensland Court of Appeal, the same approach has been adopted so far as decisions of the High Court of Australia are concerned.  

Secondly, we have incorporated a Common Room where news and views from the regional Bars as well as segments of the Bar may be found. In this edition, reports are included from the Gold Coast, from the South-Western Darling Downs and from the ‘junior, junior’ Bar. The Common Room provides a real opportunity for us to become closer than our geography (or seniority) would otherwise dictate. I hope that, in time, we will see contributions in each edition from all regions as well as from other segments of the Bar so that we may all better understand the challenges that face the Bar as a whole and, in the process, be better able to offer each other support or assistance.

Otherwise, I encourage all members to contribute to Hearsay. Although it has been said before, it bears repeating that it is only through your support that the publication will endure.

Before closing, it would be remiss of me not to make special mention of Sir George Street and his kindness in agreeing to provide responses to this edition’s Prism. For our older members, Sir George needs no introduction but, for the younger members, a separate article is published in this edition to provide some background information about one of this State’s most eminent, but enigmatic, former jurists.

Lastly, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the President and the Council of the Association for their unqualified support of Hearsay  and to web developer Brett Young, designer Greg Hale and my secretary, Emma Macfarlane, for their unstinting dedication to the, at times, daunting task of moving Hearsay online. We got there in the end!

Martin Burns