What areas of the law do your judgments involve?

It changes every decade and it changes with the economic circumstances. For instance, yesterday we had an easement case of a farmer up at Singleton [in NSW] who had access over his neighbour's land for the last 20 years and now it's been cut off.

We had a case where an employee had stolen $1 million from her employer and had put it in her children's name, and the employer was trying to get the money back from the children.

We had a case where a 50-year-old son with Down's syndrome wasn't left enough money. We have breach of trust cases as well as the more run-of-the-mill cases where there's a contract for the sale of land and either the vendor or the other purchaser wants to get out of it and the other person wants to enforce it.

The Australian economy is doing well. Does this impact on your work?

It seems to be that people are trying to get out of contracts they've purchased and [there are] more mortgages cases. Mum and dad investors usually lose out. Most of them seem to be attracted by the high interest rates and have not really investigated too much. And when the thing collapses, the first thing the directors of these mortgage companies do is buy a Mercedes or a BMW and take their girlfriends on overseas trips. So fairly soon a lot of the initial investment is lost. For a while interest is paid on new capital but that can't last forever. And then when they collapse there's not much left. Money has been hidden elsewhere or if it hasn't, it's costed to the liquidator for $450 an hour. A lot of people get really angry . but the money's gone in most cases.

Do you feel the Corporations Act is fulfilling its task?

Just like the Tax Act, it's a constant battle between the clever Harrys who find the loopholes and the authorities. But generally speaking it's going okay.

The real problem is that it's terribly expensive to wind up companies. So that once a company fails you get all these tremendous costs that eat up anything that's left. And also the idea of administration so instead of paying all those enormous costs you should see if you can revive the company. And that's a good idea in theory and in some cases it has worked but in many cases they've been used as a lurk by the directors not to pay the creditors. The assets of the company are siphoned off into another company that they control. Your trials are known for being a bit unpredictable. Is that a problem?

No, I think that I usually get a fair result. But a lot of people approach cases in the wrong way. What you're trying to get at the end of it is a result which is appropriate under the law but that will allow the parties to continue in some sort of a relationship, either commercial or personal, after the thing finishes. A lot of the skill is in the pre-trial work. Sometimes you don't know what the real situation is, such as when managing director of company X ran off with the wife of the managing director of company Y. But often you do know most of the facts and you can work it out. Because of that approach, people sometimes find at the end of the case things are different to what they predicted to be the strictly legal situation.

On one occasion I conducted a survey in the Australia, and I was on both lists.

What's your view on the relatively small number of women on the bench?

There's a lot of very tough, long unpleasant hours for people at the bar between 25 and 35. By the time the kids do get off their hands [women have] been bypassed by the people who have put in those 10 years. It's too late for them really to get on the bandwagon. We have had some very good women judges but we've had some hopeless ones too. They have been appointed with inadequate experience. When I was a QC and I was chairman of the bar's reading committee I went out of my way to promote women and I predicated that in 20 years time there would be significant numbers of women on the bench. It hasn't happened.

How do you relax?

I collect model buses. I also have fascination with bus timetables - trying to work out where bus number 227 has gone from 6am in the morning to 10pm at night - that's a completely mindless exercise. It gets my mind off the job. I like travelling when I can. I try to take a couple of months off every three years rather than taking shorter trips. I've got a lot of involvement with the church, both at the national level and in the Sydney level, and Shore School. Whilst that's not quite relaxation, it's something different. And in addition to my job, I edit the also writing a book on equity.