Swearing-in of Colin Forrest S.C.

May it please the court.

On behalf of the Queensland and National Bars I congratulate your Honour on your appointment as a judge of this court.

Your Honour’s appointment is founded in merit and is fitting for a court of this stature.

There is an interesting historical twist in your Honour’s appointment coming, in effect, following the 2010 retirement of Justice Bernie Warnick.

Your Honour and Justice Warnick used to reside in the same street, you moved into his old chambers in the Inns upon his appointment, and now you are to occupy his former chambers and sit in his former courtroom.

If Justice Warnick’s long and distinguished judicial career is any guide, and the said history or happenstance persists, this court will gain a good dividend from your Honour’s appointment.

Such appointment has been well received at the Bar where you harbour many friends.

So many at the Bar are so close to you that they have pressed me with a raft of anecdotes that could fill a small book.

Of course it would be churlish to canvass those on this occasion, although for a small price I shall have several copies of same available outside to the many members of your family who are in attendance.

I do make two exceptions. I hope you, and some of the more conservative members of your family, will forgive me for canvassing the same viva voce.

Some insight into your Honour’s inner psyche is to be garnered from your choice of costume at your themed 50th birthday party. The theme – “Man against Wild”

For one who has to walk the judicial tightrope, balancing competing claims of men and women, your Honour was brave enough to attend dressed (if one can describe it that way) as a cave man!

When this was related to me I immediately thought your Honour had in mind only the innocent exposure of your physique to friends and acquaintances, such physique well honed in recent years from your pursuit of running marathons.

Many times on the riverside path you have sprinted past me plodding, you turning back only to charitably inform me you would see me again in half an hour upon your return journey. Many thanks your Honour for your company and support on those occasions!

The other anecdote concerns your Honour’s penchant, in trial preparation and conduct, for moving into what your chamber colleagues describe as “the zone”. When in this frame of mind you manage to block out everything at work except the case at hand. A great gift no doubt.

So deep is your Honour’s concentration I was told that in a lengthy period of being in “the zone”, due to a raft of trials, for three months you failed to notice that one of the secretaries who you pass by every day on your chamber floor had a large purple streak adorning her hair.

Mr Michael Stewart S.C., a member of the Queensland Bar but also now President of the Australian Bar Association especially asked that I pass on his Association’s congratulations to your Honour. Mr Stewart at present is in a trial in Rockhampton. He informs me he went to school in Toowoomba with your wife Anne and described her as one of the most attractive women he knew at the time. She still is.

Your Honour you have the Bar’s congratulations and support as a judge of this court.

May it please the court.