Professor A J Brown – Biography
A J Brown is John F Kearney Professor of Public
Law, Griffith Law School, Griffith University,
based on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Professor Brown researches, teaches, and consults
widely in areas of public accountability, public
law, public policy, federalism and
intergovernmental relations.
Prior to joining academia, he worked as a State
government ministerial policy advisor; Associate
to Justice G E 'Tony' Fitzgerald AC, President of
the Queensland Court of Appeal; Senior
Investigation Officer with Australia’s
Commonwealth Ombudsman; and as a public
interest environmental advocate.
He is a Director of Transparency International
Australia, with whom he worked in 2003-2005 to
deliver Australia’s first National Integrity System
Assessment, including contributions to the OECD
project Public Sector Integrity: A Framework for
Assessment (OECD, 2005), and the co-edited
book Promoting Integrity: Evaluating and
Improving Public Institutions (Ashgate, 2008).
Professor Brown is an authority on public interest whistleblowing, having led the world’s largest
empirical research project to date in the field, ‘Whistling While They Work’ (2005-2009). He cowrote and edited the findings of that project, launched by Australia’s Special Minister of State,
Senator John Faulkner and published as Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector (Australian
National University E-Press, 2008).
He also works in the design and accountability of multi-level governance, intergovernmental
relations and the reform of federal systems. In 2008 and 2010 he was foundation lead researcher in
the Australian Research Council-funded Australian Constitutional Values Survey. His co-edited
books in the field include Restructuring Australia: Regionalism, Republicanism and Reform of the
Nation-State (Federation Press, 2004), and Federalism and Regionalism in Australia: New
Approaches, New Institutions? (ANU E-Press, 2007).
Professor Brown is also interested in judicial method, accountability and the relationships between
politics and law. With support from Griffith University and the Australian National University, he
recently completed a seven-year biographical project examining the life and work of Australia’s
most famous modern judge, Michael Kirby: Paradoxes & Principles (Federation Press, 2011).
URLs:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/criminology-law/griffith-law-school
http://www.griffith.edu.au/whistleblowing
http://www.griffith.edu.au/federalism
Email: a.j.brown@griffith.edu.au
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Michael Kirby: Paradoxes & Principles
by A J Brown -- Federation Press, 2011
www.federationpress.com.au
The remarkable story of the life and work of
Australia's most famous modern judge
This biography charts Michael Kirby’s extraordinary
public life from his first forays as a student politician in
the early 1960s, to his appointments as foundation
chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission
and President of the NSW Court of Appeal, to his
retirement as a Justice of the High Court of Australia in
2009.
Internationally, Kirby has been a leader in law reform
and human rights with the OECD, UNESCO, UN
Human Rights Commission and the WHO Global
Program on AIDS. He is a former world president of the
International Commission of Jurists, and was the first
Australian to serve as a Special Representative of the
UN Secretary-General for Human Rights.
A J Brown reveals Kirby’s difficult and often challenging
personal path as judge, public intellectual and gay man.
He shows the sharp contrast between Kirby’s 30-year
love affair with public controversy and the reality of a
man whose underlying message is deeply traditionalist
– that people should have faith in the status quo of
political institutions, even the monarchy.
Behind Kirby’s active courtship of an unprecedented
judicial profile lay a passion for principles and the social
relevance of the law, but it drove him into fierce conflict with the many judges and politicians who
questioned whether such celebrity was compatible with judicial life.
The slow coming together of his personal, professional and public lives, culminates in sharp
moments of truth – for Kirby, for powerful institutions, and for a society learning to cope with the
challenges of change.
‘A very fine book ... A J Brown combines great scholarship and great elegance in
his writing. I commend it to everyone ... the best biography of its kind since David
Marr’s Garfield Barwick, which was a long time ago’
– Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Member for Wentworth
‘A must read’
– Alex Sloane, ABC Radio 666 Canberra
‘Terrific’ ... ‘A compelling warts and all biography … fascinating ... impressive’
– Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age, Justinian.
‘A wonderful and richly textured account of a remarkable man ... Every lawyer
should read it’
– Julian Burnside AO QC
‘I had high expectations, but they have been exceeded ... Not only an insightful and
revealing biography, but one that is beautifully written’
– George Williams, Anthony Mason Professor & Australian Research Council Laureate
Fellow, University of New South Wales
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