The top prosecutor in NSW says she discussed a list of barristers to lead an independent review into controversial findings against her office with the state’s attorney general, before he appointed someone she had known “professionally and socially” for nearly 30 years.
Last month, a state parliamentary committee voted 4-3 to find that the New South Wales director of public prosecutions (DPP), Sally Dowling SC, had given false evidence about the pitching of a story about an Indigenous child performing an acknowledgement of country at a sentencing hearing to radio station 2GB.
Dowling admitted her office had pitched the story, but denied she had authorised it. The NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, and the DPP rejected the committee’s findings.
At budget estimates on Monday, Dowling said that she and Daley had spoken before Noel Hutley SC was appointed to lead an independent review which found there was “no positive basis” to find she had given false evidence.
She said Dowling had “called me to tell me that he was appointing a senior counsel to review the evidence that was before the inquiry and its report of the majority”.
“He raised quite a number of [senior counsel’s] names that he was considering, including Mr Hutley’s name, and some of those people did have a conflict, they had acted for the ODPP (Office of The Director of Public Prosecutions), for me, and that was about the extent of the discussion.”
Dowling said Daley had not asked for “advice”. “He mentioned some names, and I responded to those names,” she said.
Dowling said of the list of eight to 12 people, she said two “would not be appropriate”, but she did not raise Hutley as inappropriate as she did not believe there was a conflict of interest. Under further questioning, Dowling said she had indicated to Daley that she knew Hutley, but had not given any further detail.
Dowling, who told estimates she first met Hutley when she came to the bar in 1997, said she knew “most of the senior members of the inner bar after 30 years in Sydney”.
Asked if she and Hutley were friends, she said: “I know him professionally and socially and have utter respect for his professionalism, and if Mr Hutley considered that he had some kind of conflict that meant that he shouldn’t accept that from the attorney general, I have total confidence that he would have informed the attorney general of that.”
Dowling said her signing a statement of support for Hutley’s candidacy for the NSW bar council in 2015 did not give rise to a conflict, saying she was one of 26 other barristers who signed the letter “ten years ago”.
She said none of the names she discussed with Daley were interstate lawyers. Asked if it would have been more appropriate for someone from interstate to write the review, she said: “It’s a matter for the attorney general whom he seeks advice from.”
On Monday morning, Daley told estimates he rejected the suggestion that Dowling and Hutley were friends. He said he had “full and absolute confidence” in Dowling and that Hutley’s review, in which Hutley was assisted by two other barristers, had provided “an objective and expert analysis of [the report’s] shortcomings”.
Hutley and Daley were contacted for comment.
