Bret William Walker (born 1954) is an Australian barrister.

Family

Walker is the son of an Anglican minister. His second wife is Sarah Pritchard.

Education

Walker was educated at Concord West Public School and

The King's School, Parramatta , motto_translation = "Bravely and Faithfully" , streetaddress = 87–129 Pennant Hills Road , city = North Parramatta, Sydney , state = New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinat ...

. He graduated with degrees in

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

and

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...

.Who's Who Australia – entry for Bret William Bret

Career

Walker was admitted to the New South Wales bar in 1979 and was appointed

senior counsel The title of Senior Counsel or State Counsel ( post-nominal letters: SC) is given to a senior lawyer in some countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. "Senior Counsel" is used in current or former Commonwealth countries or jurisdicti ...

in 1993. He was president of the New South Wales Bar Association from November 2001 to November 2003, having been vice-president from 1996 to 2001. Walker is a member of the Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales, and has been editor of the ''

NSW Law Reports The NSW Law Reports are the official reports of the courts of New South Wales, Australia. The reports are published by The Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales and cover selected cases heard in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Ea ...

'' since 2006. He is a patron of the

State Library of New South Wales The State Library of New South Wales, part of which is known as the Mitchell Library, is a large heritage-listed special collections, reference and research library open to the public and is one of the oldest libraries in Australia. Establis ...

as a foundation senior fellow and has been a member of the NSW Health Clinical Ethics Advisory Panel since 2003. He was governor of the Law Foundation of NSW from 1996 to 2007, and Special Commissioner of Inquiry for the NSW government into

Sydney Ferries Sydney Ferries is the public transport ferry network serving the city of Sydney, New South Wales. Services operate on Sydney Harbour and the connecting Parramatta River. The network is controlled by the New South Wales Government's transport ...

in 2007. He was a foundation member and has been director of the Australian Academy of Law since 2007. He was one of the leading legal counsel representing tobacco companies in their unsuccessful fight against the Australian government's plain packaging legislation. In April 2011, Walker was appointed as the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. In 2015, Walker said that a proposed change to Australia's citizenship laws to give the Minister for Immigration the power to strip citizenship from people who support terrorism was unconstitutional. He said this was a misquote of the INSLM 2014 report by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Tony Abbott Anthony John Abbott (; born 4 November 1957) is a former Australian politician who served as the 28th prime minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Abbott was born in Lond ...

. In a 2015 interview with ''

Lateline ''Lateline'' was an Australian television news program which ran from 1990 until 2017. The program initially aired weeknights on ABC TV. In later years it was also broadcast internationally throughout Asia and the Pacific on the Australia Plu ...

'', Walker noted the Australian "habit of seeing a problem and passing a law about it". In 2018/19, Walker oversaw the South Australian Royal Commsion into the Murray-Darling Basin. Th
report
was damning of the maladministration that characterised the overseeing Murray-Darling Basin Authority, describing their decision-making as “incomprehensible” and “indefensible”. In 2019, Walker successfully acted in the appeal to the

High Court of Australia The High Court of Australia is Australia's apex court. It exercises original and appellate jurisdiction on matters specified within Australia's Constitution. The High Court was established following passage of the ''Judiciary Act 1903''. It ...

of Cardinal George Pell, whose child sex abuse convictions were overturned on 7 April 2020. In April 2020 Walker was appointed to a Special Commission of Inquiry to "… investigate all matters and agencies involved with the ''

Ruby Princess The ''Ruby Princess'' is a ''Crown''-class cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises. The ''Ruby Princess'' was built in 2008 by Fincantieri in Trieste, Italy, as a sister ship to and . She was turned over to Carnival Corporatio ...

departure and its return to Circular Quay on March 19". In 2021, Walker had the most appearances in the

, appearing 35 times; that was more than twice the number of hearings as the next busiest, Solicitor-General

Stephen Donaghue Stephen Paul Donaghue (born 7 January 1973) is an Australian barrister and constitutional lawyer and the present Solicitor-General of Australia. Donaghue has been Solicitor-General since 16 January 2017, having been appointed following the resi ...

QC.

High Court appearances

Bell Lawyers Pty Ltd v Pentelow 019HCA 29 Pell v The Queen 020HCA 12 Workpac Pty Ltd v Rossato 021HCA 23

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Bret 1954 births Living people Fellows of the Australian Academy of Law Australian barristers Australian Senior Counsel Sydney Law School alumni University of Sydney alumni People educated at The King's School, Parramatta Lawyers from Sydney Officers of the Order of Australia