Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

We saw security issues as being matters that the courts had to operate as part of their core business. My understanding is that there is screening—at most courts I am aware of—in relation to ingress and egress, to the point that I find I am frequently subjected to it when I want to visit my office at Elizabeth Street in Sydney.

The point I would make in relation to those matters is that it is a core business. I was very much involved as the Chair of the Joint Select Committee on the Family Law Act back in the seventies when people whom I knew well were threatened—I notice that the honourable member for Prospect has joined us—and I can truly say that Ray Watson lost his wife tragically. He was a student of my father’s at Penrith High School. I knew him as an adviser on family law issues to former Attorney-General Lionel Murphy. David Opas, who was shot, I used to brief when I was a young solicitor in Sydney. Richard Gee, whose home was bombed, was a specialist adviser to the select committee that I chaired. So, from time to time, issues do arise in relation to the safety of our judicial officers, and we regularly make proper risk assessments in relation to those matters as we do in relation to other office holders. Certainly, in the present climate, the security measures which the courts have been putting in place have been seen as being measured and appropriate. The courts take advice from the PSCC on what is required and, as part of their core business funding, they are expected to implement them.

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