Simon Steward isn’t quite Australia’s version of US Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, but he still stands out as the most conservative voice on our top court.
Steward was the pick of legal right-wingers at the Samuel Griffith Society when he joined the bench in 2020, and he hasn’t let them down.
He has, for instance, taken a stand against the implied freedom of political communication, despite it having existed for 30 years. That earned a sharp rebuke from Chief Justice Stephen Gageler in June about “institutional imperatives”.
A recent speech to Melbourne Law School on directors' duties was right on point, with a warning that advocating on sociopolitical issues like marriage equality and the Voice referendum could be a breach of their fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of shareholders.
