Public Life
Michael Kirby was among the founders of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, an organisation which played a prominent part in the 1999 republic referendum.
Kirby has a reputation as an eloquent and powerful orator, having given a vast number of speeches over his career on a diverse range of topics.
Kirby has strong links with the Australian National University College (formerly Faculty) of Law, being Patron of the Law Students' Society and has been a member of the advisory board. Kirby has also starred in the ANU Law Revue. Kirby is also on the Board of Advisors of The Sydney Globalist, a global-affairs magazine produced by students at his former university, the University of Sydney.
In July 2009, Kirby accepted a position as adjunct professor in law at the University of Tasmania Faculty of Law. He is also the (founding) Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Law, Information & Science, which is published by that Faculty; a position he has held since 1981.
Since 2010 he has been one of the 11 members of the Eminent Persons Group set up to advise on reform of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Kirby is an avid supporter of the arts. He has appeared in the University of Queensland Law Revue twice since 2004. In May 2007, he appeared in Melbourne alongside hip-hop impresario Elf Tranzporter at the launch of Victorian Arts Law Week, performing a rap of W. B. Yeats's poetry.
Read more about this topic: Michael Kirby (judge)
Famous quotes containing the words public life, public and/or life:
“[The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeur at another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The Indian attitude toward the land was expressed by a Crow named Curly: “The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down to find Nature’s earth, for the upper portion is Crow, my blood and my dead. I do not want to give it up.””
—For the State of Montana, U.S. public relief program. Montana: A State Guide Book (The WPA Guide to Montana)
“Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)