History

The Office of Chief Parliamentary Counsel in Victoria came into existence in July 1879 when the position of Parliamentary Draftsman was formally established as an office in the public service. Prior to this date, the Government had engaged members of the Bar to prepare bills for the Parliament. By 1874, however, there was so much concern about the standards of drafting by barristers and the cost of engaging them to do the work that the Victorian Government appointed a "parliamentary and professional assistant to the law officers of the Crown". One member of the Parliament commented "Large sums of money were annually spent by Government in paying barristers, who might be called outsiders, for drafting Bills which were only worth burning - they were not fit to see the light of day." Nonetheless the Bar continued to be involved in the drafting process until 1879 when Edward Carlile was appointed Parliamentary Draftsman.



Carlile had already served 6 years as parliamentary and professional assistant to the law officers, after being the law gold medallist at the University of Melbourne in 1869-70 followed by admission to the Bar in 1871. Carlile held the position of Parliamentary Draftsman until 1882 when he became the clerk assistant of the Legislative Assembly. In his absence John Augustus Gurner was Parliamentary Draftsman. In 1889 Carlile returned to the position of Parliamentary Draftsman until his retirement in 1910. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1900 and was knighted in 1913.

From then on, the position of Parliamentary Draftsman was held by a succession of men who had spent many years specialising in legislative drafting:

• Joseph Thomas Collins, was called to the Bar in 1894 and was awarded Master of Laws in 1895. He was warden of Trinity Women's Hostel in the University of Melbourne from 1893 for 7 or 8 years. He was appointed Parliamentary Draftsman in 1910 and remained in that position until his retirement in 1931. He was appointed King's Counsel in 1921 and made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1927.
  
• Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was Parliamentary Draftsman from 1931 until 1935, after holding the position of First Assistant Parliamentary Draftsman for 18 years. A well-known poet prior to his drafting career, O'Dowd was described by A G Stephens, of the Bulletin, as "at once learner and teacher, studying law, history and religion, interested in spiritualism, socialism, communism, anarchism and mysticism and holding fervent classes in all manner of subjects from poetry to ethics". He was offered a knighthood in 1934 but declined it. O'Dowd found "the Muse of Lawmaking a jealous lass" and wrote less poetry after 1913. As a drafter, he was later heralded as giving Victorian Acts a "classical character".
  
• Robert Casley Normand was Parliamentary Draftsman from 1935 until 1955 when he assumed responsibility for the 1958 consolidation of statutes.
  
• Andrew Garran, son of the first Commonwealth Parliamentary Draftsman, Sir Robert Garran, worked with Normand for much of the period 1935-1955 and succeeded him as Parliamentary Draftsman. He held that position for only 2 years before becoming chairman of the Victorian Public Service Board in 1957.
  
• John Joyce Lynch, another long-standing member of the drafting office, succeeded Garran in 1957. He was Parliamentary Draftsman until his death in 1965.
  
• John Charles Finemore, who had joined the office in the early 1950s, was appointed Parliamentary Draftsman in 1965.
  

In 1970 the title of the position was changed to Chief Parliamentary Counsel to recognise the wider role played by the office. John Finemore held this new position until his retirement in 1984. He was an expert in constitutional law and, in addition to his other duties, was appointed chief executive officer to the Australian Constitutional Convention in 1972 and was the executive director of its council until 1993. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1970. He became an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1974 and was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1984.

His successor in 1984, Rowena Margaret Armstrong, was the first woman to be appointed to the position of Chief Parliamentary Counsel in Victoria. She was also the first woman to be employed as Parliamentary Counsel in the Parliamentary Counsel's Office when she joined in 1966. Educated in the United Kingdom, she holds a Master of Arts degree in Classics from St Andrews University and studied law in London for 3 years. In the 1960s she contributed to the drafting of the constitution for Nauru, which became independent in 1968. She was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1991 and retired in 1999.

Rowena Armstrong was succeeded by Eamonn Patrick Aquinas Moran Q.C., who first joined the Office in 1977 from the Office of the Legislative Draftsmen in Northern Ireland. He holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1998. He led the Office until January 2008, when he left to take up the role as Head of the Department of Justice Law Drafting Division for Hong Kong.

Since the late 1950s the Parliamentary Draftsman, now the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, has been responsible for overseeing the publication of statutes in a consolidated form. In 1995 the Victorian Government Printing Office was closed and in 1996 the Chief Parliamentary Counsel also became responsible for the printing of legislation, holding office as Government Printer for the State of Victoria. During the 1990s, the computerisation of the Office of Chief Parliamentary Counsel was effected and an electronic document management system, linking the Office of Chief Parliamentary Counsel with government departments and with the Parliament, was devised and put in place.

The current Chief Parliamentary Counsel is Gemma Varley who was appointed in March 2008. Gemma joined the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel in 1978. She holds Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Law and Master of Laws degrees from Monash University. She is a member of the Victorian Bar having signed the Victorian Bar Roll in March 1981.