What sort of misinformation jumps out at you when it comes to discussion and debates around the justice system?

As a judge who served primarily as a criminal trial judge, and I've watched both here and overseas, what jumps out at me is the way courts are dealt with.

the way judges are attacked in the media and in a sense by the community, particularly as part of the victimology that goes with criminal sentencing.

So everything that happens in this atmosphere of grievance, as far as crime and punishment is concerned, is first of all the fault of the criminal and that person should be sentenced probably to life imprisonment almost regardless of the offence they commit.

But the other problems, as far as the people with the grievance are concerned, is that in the way of that, there are these judges, and they really annoy the community because they insist on behaving like judges.

You might have seen last weekend at the launch of the One Nation policy, a fellow called Mark Nicholson was promising the crowd that Daniel Andrews and Jacinda Ardern would be locked up by Christmas.

Now, there are a few implicit messages in that promise.

Lex, where is the line for you between appropriate, robust criticism and debate around the justice system and the courts and sentencing and what you would say goes beyond that? Because surely there's scope

So why are you, of all people, so passionately saying it is never appropriate to kill someone on behalf of the state?

Because I'm, I'm concerned about the civilization of our community, and if you, if you drop to the level of the criminal by killing the accused, then in many senses, you know better.

Um, we're, we're better than that.

We're better than that kind of revenge.

Um, sentencing has to occur.

Community's entitled to be protected against dangerous people, but there are all sorts of other things about sentencing that can have a beneficial effect.

But to kill someone is just to reduce the community to that level.

Mm

So why are you, of all people, so passionately saying it is never appropriate to kill someone on behalf of the state?

Because I'm, I'm concerned about the civilization of our community, and if you, if you drop to the level of the criminal by killing the accused, then in many senses you no better.

Um, we're, we're better than that.

We're better than that kind of revenge.

Um, sentencing has to occur.

Community's entitled to be protected against dangerous people, but there are all sorts of other things about sentencing that can have a beneficial effect.

But to kill someone is just to reduce the community to that level.

Mm

So why are you, of all people, so passionately saying it is never appropriate to kill someone on behalf of the state?

Because I'm, I'm concerned about the civilization of our community, and if you, if you drop to the level of the criminal by killing the accused, then in many senses, you know better.

Um, we're, we're better than that.

We're better than that kind of revenge.

Um, sentencing has to occur.

Community's entitled to be protected against dangerous people, but there are all sorts of other things about sentencing that can have a beneficial effect.

But to kill someone is just to reduce the community to that level.

Mm

And, and, and was there any difference in a judge for you being judge of a retrial as opposed to the original trial?

Um, well, the case was about Robert Farquharson's, the allegations against him were that he murdered his three children on Father's Day.

I forget the year now, but it was a Father's Day.

He had his ch- he and his wife had separated.

He had his children for the day, took them to McDonald's or somewhere in Geelong, and w- they were driving back to Winchelsea, where they lived, and basically, as he drove along that highway, he turned right and drove the, the car into a dam.

His defense was, "I had a coughing fit and lost control of the car." The crown case was he did it deliberately with the intention of killing his children in order to exact revenge on his wife.

Um, that's what the case was about.

That's a permanent stay?