Have to admit, Faris is quite a character!The Age said:Loved by taxi drivers and loathed by fellow lawyers, Peter Faris, QC, has cultivated a reputation for aggression in the courtroom - and on the airwaves. Gary Tippet meets the man behind the scowl.
LOOK at Peter Faris looking back at you from the computer screen and you can almost hear the growling.
It is a tightly cropped headshot. Faris' face thrusts towards the camera from the background gloom in a way that accentuates his nose, making it bulbous and doughy. Baleful eyes glare out from beneath a thundercloud of thick, furrowed brow. His mouth, framed by a salt-and-pepper moustache and beard, is a tight, disagreeable line.
It is a deeply unflattering photograph. On anyone else's website, you'd suspect it had been chosen with extreme malice aforethought to portray the lawyer as some harrumphing grump.
In a sense that's exactly how it happened: Faris' son took the picture. "Give us your trademark scowl," he directed and his father happily complied and then posted it on his blog.
Which might say as much about Peter Faris QC as any of the provocations he types into that weblog. After more than 40 years as one of Melbourne's most successfully combative criminal lawyers, Faris, 66, has made a new name for himself — with business cards to match — as 3AW broadcaster and multi-media commentator. And career controversialist.
On the station's Sunday morning discussion program, in his Faris QC Blog (subheaded "Australia, Love It Or Leave It"), and in contributions to Crikey.com and newspaper opinion pages, he assails a variety of targets. He wants racial profiling of Muslim airline passengers, suggests Joseph "Jihad Jack" Thomas be handed over to Pakistan to face terror charges, and argues that torture is acceptable under certain circumstances.
When Public Advocate Julian Gardner decided to remove the feeding tube from Maria Korp last year, Faris said: "If the Public Executioner — oops — Advocate wants to kill her then he should personally put her down by injection."
Faris tells how barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside QC looked at him at a dinner recently and said "I think you are the most dangerous person in Australia". He barks out a husky laugh: "And he meant it!"
This is the side of Peter Faris that unlovely photo seems to illustrate. The topics and language he chooses seem calculated incitements, intended to further exsanguinate already bleeding hearts. There's a suspicion of shock-theatre about his pronouncements, as if they're verbal versions of that "trademark scowl", until you wonder if he's reactionary or just looking for a reaction.
"He certainly thrives on the notoriety, the recognition," says a fellow barrister. "He revels in that — and he's got an adoring fan base of rednecks and vigilantes."
But Faris insists he says what he means and means what he says: "All I'm being is me, all I'm saying is what I think. What I say, even though it sounds confrontationist, is something I believe, that I've thought deeply about. I don't just say those things for sensational effect."
Yet, next breath, he adds that part of his job each Sunday is to do the program's first editorial. "And it's talkback radio, I've got to light up the switchboard. It's my job to get them on the line and you don't do that by pussyfooting around … You've got to work out what you think and say it in such a way that half the people are going to agree and the other half hate it.
"It's edgy. It's fun. I enjoy it … I think why the radio thing is working is because I've got the skill to identify a divisive and contentious issue — and to present it in a divisive and contentious way."
Faris seems comfortable with labels. In his blog he is "fair dinkum politically incorrect". Over coffees in his city apartment, he repeats a couple of unflattering self-assessments: Maverick. Confrontationist. Hostile. Aggressive.
And unpopular. "I understand that I'm unpopular — every time I speak to a journalist they want to tell me they've spoken to lawyers and how unpopular I am. I know that, I don't need to be told," he says. And smiles.
WHEN Faris became chairman of the National Crime Authority in 1989, his old comrade from the Fitzroy Legal Service, Robert Richter QC, resorted to cliche to welcome his appointment. Faris was an Australian Elliot Ness, he said. He went on: "I can't think of anyone who is more honest, more reasonable, more single-minded and more devastating to take on the job."
How would Richter describe Faris now? Well, he wouldn't. At least not on the record. Pressed about that glowing reference, he offers three short sentences. "I thought it at the time. Let's just say I no longer think so. But it's irrelevent because he doesn't hold the job any more."
Faris and Richter became public adversaries in 2000 when Faris led the fight against Wesley Central Mission's attempt to establish a health and rehabilitation centre for heroin addicts — a description opponents quickly and effectively shortened to "injecting rooms".
Faris, who lived in the Regency Apartments, a half block from the Mission, was secretary of the inner-city lobby group Residents 3000. But he had long advocated a hard-nosed approach to drug crime. Richter, an advocate for drug reform, was on the other side as Wesley's legal adviser. Ultimately Faris' arguments, often couched in combative, emotive language, won the day.
Whatever friendship he and Richter had, it had already disintegrated, say others from Melbourne's legal fraternity. Even when they shared chambers, says a lawyer, they had explosive arguments over cases. Both were alpha personalities, but Faris was particularly confrontationist.
"Perhaps it was because it was a clash of heavyweights," the lawyer recalls. "But Peter personalised things to a great degree. He was always a person who saw things in black and white and many would say that (in trials) he seemed to see the worst in his opponent, whatever the case."
Faris concedes there's some truth in that assessment. Criminal law, he says, is by definition adversarial. There's a lot at stake and a courtroom is no place for shrinking violets so he practises in a way that suits his personality, which is, as he has admitted, aggressive."I think it's an advantage having a reputation for being tough and hard. If you've paid a lot of money for a lawyer to fight a case for you, do you want a wimp or do you want someone who's going to go in and rip their throats out? I don't see this as a gentleman's game where … you have synthetic rage and you act it out and then all go and have a beer afterwards. I see it as real life."
As for his relationship with Richter, Faris simply says they grew apart. As they became senior and began opposing each other in trials it turned competitive and eventually personal. But he still rates Richter as Australia's best criminal lawyer.
"It was a lot of macho competitiveness and we've resolved that by just staying away from each other. We don't cross each other's paths so we don't have any conflict."
A former defence lawyer says Faris' pugilistic verbal style has left him with "a dreadful reputation" among his fellows: "He's really overtly aggressive and very unpopular."
At the far reaches of that unpopularity is another QC who says: "He's got a fatal character flaw and that is he despises just about everyone and he thinks he's underestimated and undervalued. He has a brilliant mind, he's a clever man, but he's a bitter, twisted man."
Some say Faris' alleged bitterness stems from the aftermath of an incident in September 1989, when he was stopped by police in Dudley Street, West Melbourne — on some accounts near a brothel and with $170 in his hand.
When he suddenly resigned from the NCA a few months later, citing ill health, the scuttlebutt was that he had been forced out. Friends have said he was set up and there is no suggestion of anything improper or illegal. But one barrister says the episode jolted him and left him permanently resentful.
It is one subject where Faris throws up the shutters. "This was an NCA matter, which by virtue of it being a secret organisation, is a matter of secrecy," he says. "If you want to know details, go and see what they give you."
But some colleagues, at what might be regarded as the left of the legal fraternity, admit to having almost a soft spot for him.
Footscray solicitor Rob Stary represents Joseph Thomas, whose conviction on terrorism charges was quashed last month, a decision that Faris described as a win for civil liberties over national security. Stary, presumably, was from what Faris called that "galaxy of civil liberties lawyers who don't care a fig about the safety of the Australian public".
Yet Stary admits to a lingering respect for Faris and says that on a personal level they have always got on very well. "I'm very civil to him and he's always been good to me (even though) he calls me a Maoist and a Trotskyite and a Stalinist, all in the one breath.
"So I've got this schizophrenic-type relationship with him where I just don't agree with anything he says politically, but I'm still fond of him."
As a founder of both the Fitzroy and Central Australian Aboriginal legal services, he says, Faris deserves much admiration. Stary also repeats a piece of folklore about Faris' early days defending Aboriginal people in Alice Springs, where he was allegedly tarred and feathered by "redneck Ku Klux Klan types". If true, he says, it is an illustration of the man's contribution and his courage. But it is also a pointer of how far he's swung from his early days as a champion of the working class.
The incident never happened, says Faris, although he was a pariah to the good white folk of the Centre, abused in the street, refused service in shops and taunted by Rotarians. It is just another piece of the mythology that somehow trails him.
And so, he says, is the perception that he has swung from people's warrior of the left to the extreme right. That class traitor crap.
FARIS grew up in Pitt Street, West Footscray, a mix of modest private and Housing Commission homes a half-block from the night-and-day clangour of the metal fabrication factories of pre-rustbelt Braybrook.
His father, George Peter Faris, was a bank clerk and later moved the family to Hampton. Faris did his matriculation year at Melbourne High and, he says, scraped into Melbourne University on a Commonwealth Scholarship, choosing law because he didn't have the prerequisite subjects to do anything else. He claims he hadn't met a lawyer until he applied for his articles and still hasn't developed an affection for the breed.
Broadcaster and former lawyer Jon Faine tells a story of Faris giving a lunchtime lecture at Monash law school in 1975. "Speaking as a senior member of the criminal bar," he declared, "it's all a lot of shit."
Now Faris says he doubts the public gets much value from a legal system populated mainly by "mediocre" practitioners but surrounded by self-generated mystique.
Two years before the Monash lecture he made another observation: "By the time a student comes out of law school, he's a good little cog in a capitalist society." It was a statement that would further the misconception of him as a leftist but, typically, he says he was simply aiming to needle.
Needling apparently came naturally. Faris has always stood out at 188 centimetres, but in the 1960s and '70s added long hair and went to court in brown, elastic-sided boots, North Melbourne footy socks and a pinstriped morning suit, a sartorial snub at the dress code.
The other remnant memory of him in those days is of the quintessential rebel at the front line of Vietnam moratoriums and anti-Springbok demonstrations and defending draft resisters. In the early '70s he helped found the Fitzroy Legal Service, to represent working people who could not afford lawyers, and in 1974 took his ideals to Central Australia for two years with the new Aboriginal Legal Service.
Lex Lasry QC has known Faris for more than 30 years and says that in those days he had a reputation as being "aggressively socially aware". Faris smiles at the compliment and says "Well, I am that now, aren't I?"
Critics have labelled him "Full-Circle Faris" but even that, he happily points out, is an inaccuracy, factually and grammatically: "They really mean half circle, don't they?"
Opposing apartheid, or the war in Vietnam or supporting legal rights for the under-privileged, does not automatically tinge someone red, he says. "I'm not a joiner, I'm a maverick, I'm independent … I've never been a Christian, I've never been a Marxist, I've never been a socialist."
But almost despite himself — or perhaps because he can't resist the provocation — he gives them another piece of ammunition.
Trying to explain where he got the confidence, and enthusiasm, to push his political views on his radio spot, he offers up an anecdote. During the injecting rooms debate, he spoke at a public meeting in Springvale. "When I spoke all hell broke loose, people giving me a standing ovation at the end of every sentence. When I finished I sat down and said to the guy sitting next to me 'Now I know how Hitler felt'. It's a very strange experience to say what you think, and realise a lot of people want to hear what you have to say."
Was it intoxicating? "I think it could be," he answers. "I don't think it is for me, but I could see how it could be intoxicating for a demagogue, yeah."
TWENTY-THREE to 11, Sunday morning, and the canyon of apartments and offices that is Bank Street, South Melbourne, is bathed in brilliant sunshine. "It's up to 21 degrees," Darren James tells his listeners. "26 later." Inside the glassed-in 3AW studio the mercury is rising far above that.
Nick McCallum is half out of his chair like a bulldog at the end of its leash, finger jabbing at Peter Faris. Faris sits back, nursing a mug of water and a half-smile. A couple of seconds ago he'd been goading a caller named Grant on how the Iraq war can turn a Muslim — specifically an 18-year-old, cricket-playing, English-born, middle-class Pakistani — into a London Tube bomber. McCallum has dared to intercede.
"Let him answer the question, Nick," snaps Faris. "Just shut up for a minute."
"Hang on, don't talk to me like that," says McCallum, his face burning.
"Let him answer the question," says Faris. "This is talkback radio …"
"Don't talk to me like that."
"Just shut up for a minute and let the listener talk."
"Please do not talk to me like that."
"Just shut up for a minute, Nick, and let's take the call."
This is the prosaically but unrevealingly titled Sunday Morning, a two-hour chunk of airtime given over to what, with charity, might be called current affairs debate — if the definition of debate encompasses shouting, talking over the top, interrupting and interjecting, sulking, snide asides, abuse and insult. It's a 120-minute disagreement.
And the demographic seems to love it. Catch a taxi between 10am and noon on any Sunday and chances are the cabbie will be nodding along.
McCallum equates it to two blokes at a bar or barbecue having a spirited discussion or debate — "that's the mood and atmosphere we try to create".
Faris and the former Channel Nine and Fox Footy reporter have been squaring off like this for around five years. McCallum admits there's an element of theatre to the program, but insists that "99 per cent of the time" each is stating genuinely held beliefs. "(But) it's an adversarial show and Peter would not be doing his job if he did not get under my skin and vice versa. I hold no grudges, it's all part of the gig and I really enjoy it."
Faris initially came to the show — then "a wimpish affair, Sunday morning-lite" — as a rotating guest, appearing every six or eight weeks. But he says he felt he had "things to say", insisted on a regular spot and was signed to do 40 weeks a year. He claims to be at a loss to explain the show's popularity. "Why anyone would listen to me on Sunday mornings for two hours I honestly don't know. My wife doesn't listen."
He is revelling in his new role as multi-media player and the chance it gives him to vent his opinions. As a barrister you are trained to not express a personal opinion, which is why you tell a judge "in my submission" rather than "I think". In a sense, the shift has been liberating.
"It's a platform. I think the three things, the radio, Crikey and the blog, there's a convergence for me. For whatever reason I think I've got something to say … I regard myself as being well-read, I think I'm intelligent, I'm old enough now to have some experience of life. I think I've got something to say that can make a contribution to debates on various issue in our society, which is what democracy thrives on."
Lex Lasry rarely listens to the program, but says part of Faris' success is that he cuts through the usual lawyer's jargon: "He can spell out a point of view and leave out the language of lawyers that so often gets in the way of them communicating with people."
McCallum suggests that Faris' anger is sometimes a little scary. "I think it's very sad. He's a man who's had a very successful career; he's got a lovely wife and family; he earns more in a day than the average person earns in a month — and yet here he is near 67 and he's grumpy and he's bitter and he's twisted and he's paranoid.
"In many ways now I see him as the Bruce Ruxton of the law. Journos will come to him for an outrageous quote about a particular contentious issue. But I think he is, by and large, sincere. Misguided, yeah, but sincere."
Faris would argue, happily and at length, about the misguided bit. But as for the rest, he says — as you'd pretty much expect and with one of those half-smiles — "What other people think of me is their problem. Basically, I don't give a stuff."
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