On 29 November 2019 NSW Labor Lawyers hosted its fourth annual dinner at Bodhi Restaurant, Sydney. Members and supporters heard from Dr Anne Aly MP, the Member for Cowan, Paul Lynch MP, the NSW Shadow Attorney-General, and the 2019 Legal Tweaks editor Kieran Fitzgerald. A transcript of the dinner is no available - click here for access.

On 8 October 2019 NSW Labor Lawyers held their Annual Frank Walker Lecture in celebration of the life and achievements of the late Frank Walker QC, the Society's founder and former Attorney-General of New South Wales.

An excerpt of the lecture is available on the ABC's Speaking Out program and a full transcript can be downloaded by clicking here.

"But I also understand what Frank told me so many years ago - that the reforms worth losing skin over, the ones that promote fairness and equity and go to the core of Labor values, will come under constant attack. In a sense, it is an incredibly long game - because there is no end to that contest - it goes on and on." - Bruce Hawker

On 15 May 2018 Bruce Hawker delivered the fourth Annual Frank Walker Lecture on the topic "Populists, Demagogues and Celebrities - Challenges for Progressive Campaigning in the Age of Trump". A copy of the address can now be accessed online by clicking here.

On 15 March 2018 NSW Labor Lawyers hosted a CPD presented by David Ralph, Professor of Media and Defamation Law at the University of Sydney. The topic was "The intersection of privilege, contempt and defamation in the Australian parliamentary system". Materials from the presentation are now available online.

I regret to inform you that you have invited a very grumpy old woman to speak to you tonight. There is much of modern life that I resent and resist. I will spare you the list but at the very top of it is the decline and demonisation of Trade Unions. I suppose I should declare at the outset that Trade Unions were an influential part of my formative years. My father was a member of and, from time to time, the local rep for the AFULE (Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Engineers). 

In February last year, The Monthly published my essay It’s Time. The title was not simply channelling Labor’s 1972 campaign slogan.

It was rather a recognition of the fact that the time has come for marriage equality in Australia, and a reminder to those who deny marriage rights to gay and lesbian Australians that what we have in common matters more than the division and difference some wish to cultivate.

The NSW Society of Labor Lawyers today expressed its disappointment and concern over the passage of the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Assault and Intoxication) Bill 2014 through the NSW Parliament.

The Bill creates a new offence of “assault causing death”, and an aggravated form of that offence where the offender is an adult and is intoxicated. The aggravated intoxication offence carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 8 years imprisonment.

The NSW Society of Labor Lawyers today welcomed the High Court’s decision holding parts of the O’Farrell government’s campaign finance laws unconstitutional.