Opinion
In Memoriam: Simon Garnett
14th Nov 2024
The ALA is saddened to hear of the recent passing of Simon Garnett, a foundation member of the organisation who served as a National Director and Victorian State President.
As a foundation member of APLA (now the ALA), Simon, with others, forged its nature, structure and function.
Simon’s first career was as a high school teacher. Turning to the law, he was articled to Ryan Carlisle & Thomas (Ryan’s) in 1982, eventually becoming a partner in the firm. There he practiced mainly in workers compensation, always for the worker.
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| Simon Garnett and Ian Jupp at an APLA conference, c.1990s |
He played a leading role in ALA’s two-year focussed and strategic advocacy decrying the legislative abolition of common law rights for workers in Victoria, enacted in November 1997, demanding its reversal. This ultimately successful campaign played no small role in the shock election of the Bracks government in October 1999. Common law rights for seriously injured workers were retrospectively reinstated to the date of the new government’s swearing in.
It was then that the ALA came to wider public notice in Victoria, perceived as articulate and persuasive defenders of the rights of the injured. Simon became a respected leader of his profession through this very trying period by virtue of his tireless commitment to a cause he passionately believed in.
In another project advancing compensation rights for injured workers otherwise left behind, Simon took up the cause of UK coalminers afflicted with black lung and like conditions who had emigrated to Australia. An existing compensation scheme was open only to UK residents. Alongside his Ryan’s colleague, Rohan Atherton, Simon worked with the UK government to develop a compensation system for Australian-resident claimants, and then assisted many workers with their claims.
Simon was the ALA’s Victorian State President and a National Director from 2003 to 2005. He was instrumental in the formation of Legal Liaison Committees (LLC) with, respectively, WorkSafe Victoria and TAC. These LLCs exist to this day, still crucial institutional bridges between the plaintiff legal community and state compensation authorities
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| Simon Garnett (second from right) with his wife Jenny and Michael Mitchell and John Kotsifas at an APLA event |
Appointed to the Magistrates Court in 2006, Simon was initially assigned to the Court’s WorkCover jurisdiction. He nimbly found his way through the dark thickets of Victorian workers compensation law with which he was so familiar, sometimes casting helpful interpretive light on them. As a Magistrate, Simon advocated for better treatment of prisoners coming before his Court and made important rulings about protesters’ rights.
In 2003 he was interviewed for Plaintiff (the predecessor of Precedent), and said:
‘Breaking down the barriers between plaintiff law firms has been one of APLA’s greatest achievements. It’s enabled the profession to share information and boosted its ability to protect injured people.’
His words remain relevant.
Simon’s ability to identify people and institutions with compatible interests and goals, and his knack for organising and working with them to collectively put shoulders to the wheel in common cause, was of enormous and lasting benefit to the ALA.
From the ALA’s enduring connections with the Law Institute and Trades Hall, to its ongoing critical consultative roles with federal and especially state parliament, governments of the day, courts, and institutional litigants – to all of these features of the ALA sometimes taken for granted in 2024, Simon made seminal contributions.
A kindly man without pretension, Simon had a keen sense of humour and the absurd. He was generous and patient with the numerous less experienced, able, or knowledgeable lawyers who sought his counsel.
He will be sadly missed by his many friends in the law.
The ALA extends its deepest condolences to Simon’s wife, Jenny and family, and to his friends and former colleagues.
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