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Valedictory Address – Robert Cornall AO

Introductory remarks
Lynelle Briggs,
Public Service Commissioner

Good afternoon everyone. I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people and their ancestors as the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting today.

On behalf of the Australian Public Service Commission and Terry Moran, I’m extremely pleased to welcome you all here for a very special event—this afternoon’s Secretaries Valedictory Lecture by Robert Cornall, on his retirement as Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department.

The Commission hosts these special lectures by selected Secretaries as a mark of respect and so that they can give their reflections on their careers and their suggestions on the way forward for the Australian Public Service.

Robert Cornall was born in Melbourne, went to school at Wesley College, and graduated in law from Melbourne University. He began his career in 1969 as a solicitor at Middletons Oswald Burt, becoming a partner there in 1972. From 1987 to 1995 he was Executive Director and Secretary of the Law Institute of Victoria. Then from 1995 to 2000 he was Managing Director of Victorian Legal Aid. 

Reflecting on his 19 years as a solicitor in Melbourne, he noted how private practice gave him a private sector mindset and has guided his approach to client service ever since:

“If you didn’t have a client who valued your services and was prepared to pay for them, you had nothing to do and you couldn’t pay the bills…We had no expectation that we had a right to exist. We had no expectation that we had a right to clientele. We had to persuade people by various means that they should use services and then we had to convince them that those services were valuable. And I think that’s a very useful starting point.”

It is this approach that coloured his early philosophy as Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, where he remarked that ‘the quality of work by itself is very valuable but it’s got to be in the context of achieving someone’s objective’.

So when Robert Cornall began as Secretary there in 2000, he transformed the department and improved its performance by emphasising its outward or client focus— and he has remained Secretary there and committed to that approach for the last eight years.

The Attorney-General’s Department serves the people of Australia by providing essential expert support to the Government in the maintenance and improvement of Australia’s system of law and justice and its national security and emergency management systems.

The department is the central policy and coordinating element of the Attorney-General’s portfolio for which the Attorney-General and Minister for Home Affairs are responsible.

It administers 145 Acts of Parliament covering such areas as telephone interception, copyright, extradition, age discrimination, family law, Geneva conventions, criminal law and native title.

To describe the eight years during which Robert Cornall has been Secretary at Attorney-General’s as ‘challenging’ would be something of an understatement. In many ways these have been tumultuous years in the story of Australia’s political life, both at home and internationally. Robert has had to respond, advise and anticipate in some of the most tragic and demanding of circumstances.

As leaders in our agencies, we expect that, from time to time, an item of ours may prove newsworthy. But, when you examine the issues that Attorney-General’s has dealt with since 2000, it becomes apparent that the department has rarely been out of the news.

I would like to provide a mere snapshot of Robert Cornall’s work and achievements over the last eight years.

Not long after taking over as Secretary, the terrorist attack in the United States on 11 September 2001 had an immediate and continuing impact on the Attorney-General’s Department.

There is no better example of how whole-of-government or ‘connected government’ works than national security. Attorney-General’s played a major role in this collaborative work undertaking a review of counter-terrorism arrangements, including the urgent passage of counter-terrorism legislation, introducing air security officers on civil aviation, developing arrangements to protect critical infrastructure, improving national police powers, providing protective security for diplomats and holders of high office, improving emergency response and consequence management, developing and implementing public campaigns, providing support for agencies like ASIO, AFP, Customs, the Australian Crime Commission, AUSTRAC and CrimTrac, introducing the National Security Hotline, and securing increased Budget support.

After these early responses to 9/11, Robert Cornall guided the department on a wide range of further actions in the area of national and international security, including

• negotiating the referral of constitutional power over terrorism from the States to the Commonwealth
• developing urgent legislation after the Bali bombing to facilitate the extradition and trial of terrorists in Australia, where Australians have been killed or injured overseas
• assisting various Pacific Island and South East Asian countries such as the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia in addressing a range of issues, including law and order, governance, corruption, and the financing of terrorists
• establishing the Australian Crime Commission with a strengthened mandate to fight serious and organised crime and terrorism
• providing advice to the Howard Government on the decision to join the international coalition to disarm Iraq
• co-hosting (with Indonesia) a regional ministerial forum on counter-terrorism
• participating in the Proliferation Security Initiative to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
• taking over vetting applicants for aviation and maritime security identification cards through the Australian Background Checking Service—AusCheck

In his time as Secretary, Robert has championed whole-of-government activities. Apart from national security work, other areas of support for whole-of-Government activities include responses to people trafficking, international law obligations flowing from the Iraq war, Timor Sea oil production, the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, national preparations for the Commonwealth Games and many more.

You’d think that would probably amount to a good range of achievements. But let’s not forget that this amounts to just one aspect of the department’s work. Consider briefly a few of the other areas of achievement:

• providing support to Royal Commissions into HIH, the Building and Construction Industry, AWB and Centenary House and inquiries into Equine Influenza and the Haneef case
• developing legislation to prohibit age discrimination and to encourage older citizens to participate in the workforce beyond 55
• managing the implementation of the hand gun buyback scheme, removing 65,000 handguns from the community.
• through Emergency Management Australia, playing an integral role in the response to the ACT bushfires and the Boxing Day tsunami and with the repatriation of Australians injured in the Bali bombing to hospitals around the nation
• assuming the policy and administrative roles of the Office of Film and Literature Classification in relation to films, computer games and publications
• in criminal law, managing a large legislative programme dealing with people smuggling, terrorist financing, and international money laundering, cybercrime and other measures to combat serious and organised crime
• assisted with the previous Government’s response to the report Out of the Maze: Pathways to the Future for Families Experiencing Separation, reforming the arrangements on the division of property on marriage breakdown so that super-annuation would be treated as property, and establishing 65 family relationship centres in conjunction with the Department of Family and Community Services
• promoting the use of Indigenous land use agreements and consent determinations rather than litigation
• taking over the management of Australia’s inter-country adoption programmes from the States and Territories.

A wealth of achievement—which also highlights how Robert Cornall has transformed the department into an organisation with considerably expanded operational activities.

And a department that has grown in size and responsibility, having been given many more functions such as the National Security Hotline, 24/7 Watch Office, the transfer of Emergency Management Australia from the Department of Defence, the indigenous law and justice program when ATSIC was abolished, the creation of a new central vetting agency for aviation and maritime security identification cards, critical infrastructure protection, and establishing family relationship centres.

And all these new responsibilities send that clear message that the Government has absolute confidence in the department and Robert Cornall as Secretary to meet those requirements.

This snapshot of those eight years highlight two special features of Robert’s time at AG’s: his adaptability to the ever-changing circumstances and demands of his role, and his reliable, calm, stable and secure influence and advice in very difficult times.

I should also say, on a personal level, that I have found Rob to be a thoughtful and supportive colleague, a defender of the public service, and a very decent person. He commands considerable respect in the legal community and across jurisdictions in the public sector.   More than this, he is positively egalitarian in the very nicest of ways— he treats everyone, no matter what their job or their position or agenda, with warmth, courtesy and respect, and makes them feel wanted.  He will be sorely missed by us all.

Robert Cornall was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2006 for service to the community through contributions to the development of public policy, particularly counter-terrorism arrangements in a changing global security environment and through providing advice and governance across a diverse range of responsibilities within the civil justice system.

Robert Cornall is a man with a remarkable career of leadership and achievement, and we are proud and delighted that he has agreed to deliver this lecture. He is joined today by his wife, Jan.

Would you please join me in welcoming Robert Cornall, Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, for his Secretaries Valedictory Lecture.

 

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