Early Life
Evans was born in Melbourne, Victoria. His father was a tram driver, and his mother, who had been a wartime Woolworths store manager, ran a small baby-wear business from home. He was educated at Hawthorn West Central School (1950–57); Melbourne High School (1958–61); the University of Melbourne (1962–67) where he graduated BA, LLB Hons, sharing the Supreme Court Prize, and was President of the Students Representative Council from 1964 to 1966; and Oxford University (1968–70), where he attended on a Shell scholarship and graduated MA with first class honours in philosophy, politics, and economics. In 2004, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, his alma mater at Oxford.
From 1971 to 1976 he was law academic at the University of Melbourne, teaching crime, torts, civil liberties law and federal constitutional law, and becoming a prominent commentator on legal issues, especially at the time of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975. In 1977 he edited Labor and the Constitution 1972–75, a collection of essays on constitutional issues arising during the life of the Whitlam Government, and later co-authored Australia’s Constitution, arguing for major constitutional reforms. From 1976 to his entry into the Parliament he practised full-time as a barrister, specialising in industrial law, and appellate argument, and became a Queen's Counsel (in Victoria and the ACT) in 1983.
Evans was active in civil liberties issues from his student days on, campaigning on issues such as censorship, capital punishment, the White Australia policy, apartheid and abortion law reform. He was a long-serving vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty Victoria), and an active executive member of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service.
During the Whitlam Labor Government, he acted as a consultant to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gordon Bryant, advising on Indigenous land rights and legal services issues, and Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, where he was closely involved in drafting the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the (unsuccessful) Human Rights Bill 1973. He was appointed by Murphy as a foundation member of the Australian Law Reform Commission, chaired by Justice Michael Kirby, and was primarily responsible for the Commission’s 1975 report on Criminal Investigation.
Evans joined the Australian Labor Party while at University of Melbourne and became actively involved after his return from Oxford in 1975, joining the centre-right Labor Unity faction and working closely with its leaders including Clyde Holding, Peter Redlich and Ian Turner – and Bob Hawke, whose ambition to lead the party he strongly supported. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate in 1975, but was elected in 1977 and took his seat in 1978.
Read more about this topic: Gareth Evans (politician)
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“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
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