Chris Sumner

Christopher John Sumner AM (born 17 April 1943) is an Australian lawyer and former politician who is the longest serving Attorney-General in the State of South Australia. He was for 19 years a member of the South Australian Legislative Council for the Australian Labor Party and led the party in that House in government and opposition. He served at times as acting Premier.

Chris Sumner

As Attorney-General, Sumner was credited with a number of reforms, notably the development of policies on victims of crime that later were adopted nationally.

In 1985 he was the lead spokesperson for the Australian delegation and rapporteur at the Seventh United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Milan. This conference established the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 29 November 1985.

Sumner was a Member of the World Society of Victimology for a decade, and President from 1991 to 1994. He chaired the Organising Committee for the 8th International Symposium on Victimology, held in Adelaide, and co-edited the proceedings.

After leaving politics, Sumner spent 17 years as a member of Australia's National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT), the last 12 as Deputy President. The Tribunal was established by the Australian Parliament, in the wake of the "Mabo case" (Mabo v Queensland (No 2)), to “achieve consensual resolution of native title determination applications, where possible”.

Sumner retired from the NNTT in April 2012 but continued to practise law and conduct mediations.

In 2001 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and received the Centenary Medal.

Early life and career

Sumner was born in Melbourne but spent his childhood in different parts of South Australia. He attended Nuriootpa High School before moving to Adelaide in 1960 to complete his schooling at Adelaide Boys High School.

He spent six years at the University of Adelaide, completing a Bachelor of Laws in 1966 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1968. He was president and Secretary of the Student Representative Council in 1964–65, President of the Adelaide University Union 1966–68, and played for the university Australian Rules football team, The Blacks.

He also was an active member of the ALP Club and formed a strong friendship with John Bannon, a future South Australian Premier. Other members at that time included future ALP politicians and executive members Gordon Bilney, David Combe, Chris Schacht and Peter Duncan.

Sumner was admitted to the Bar of the South Australian Supreme Court in December 1967 and worked as a barrister and solicitor in private practice until 1979. In 1968-69 he also was an Executive Member and Treasurer of the South Australian Council for Civil Liberties.

Sumner was a part-time tutor in politics at the University of Adelaide between 1968 and 1972, and in 1973 was a member of the personal staff of Federal Minister Senator Reg Bishop. In 1974 he studied for eight months at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, Italy, obtaining the Intermediate Certificate of Knowledge of the Italian Language.

Sumner was an unsuccessful ALP candidate for the Federal seat of Boothby in 1969 and the State seat of Torrens in 1973. He was elected to the Legislative Council on 12 July 1975.

He was a member of the Council of Flinders University from 1975 to 1979.

Attorney-General

In May 1979 Sumner was appointed the State's 43rd Attorney-General by Premier Des Corcoran. However the Government lost the election four months later, and he became Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council.

When the ALP returned to office at the November 1982 election, Sumner was appointed Attorney-General by Premier John Bannon, and remained in that position until 15 December 1993. In July of that year he became the longest-serving Attorney-General of South Australia, surpassing the term of Sir Shirley Williams Jeffries, who served from 1933 to 1944.

In 1985, the South Australian Parliament became the first in Australia to provide for an administrative declaration of victims’ rights and made it clear that the effect on the victim was a factor that had to be taken into account in sentencing.

Legislation also was passed to establish a Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund into which assets confiscated as a result of criminal activity could be paid, and to provide compensation for grief for certain relatives of someone killed by a criminal act. In 1987, provision was made for a levy to be imposed on criminal offending and paid into the Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund to improve the compensation available to victims of crime. This remains unique among Australian jurisdictions.

In an interview published by the Law Society, Sumner notes that the issue was whether or not the judge had the sufficient information to take into account the effect of the crime on the victim at the time of sentencing. “The victim impact statements were designed to make sure that the judge had all that information and could take them into account,” he said.

Academic Sharyn Roach Anleu wrote that the plight of the victim became a central focus in criminal justice policy in SA and its policies are “among the most comprehensive and detailed in the world”.

In 1987 Sumner delivered the John Barry Memorial Lecture at the University of Melbourne on “Victim Participation in the Criminal Justice System”. This was subsequently published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. In 1991 he presented a paper on South Australian initiatives in relation to crime prevention at a conference organised by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Other initiatives during Sumner's time as Attorney-General include:

• The launch, in August 1989, of the “Together Against Crime” strategy, based on the policy that a reduction in crime could not be based solely on police and the criminal justice system. It argued that the conditions that generate crime need to be addressed by agencies concerned with planning and development, the family, health, employment and training, housing, social services, schools as well as the police and justice system.

• The Royal Commission into the murder conviction of Charles Edward Splatt and subsequent decision to establish a State Forensic Science Centre independent of the police. This became a model nationally for dealing with forensic evidence. In his 2016 interview with the Law Society Sumner says this “set the scene for a complete revolution in the way scientific evidence in criminal court cases was collected and assessed, so it was done by scientists”.

• South Australia's electoral laws were rewritten, with four-year terms for Parliament and truth in political advertising provisions – the first in Australia. In 2024, these changes were described as a “model for Australia -wide reform” by the Centre for Public Integrity. The same year, Sumner was interviewed for a study examining the effectiveness of truth in advertising laws.

• The State's Equal Opportunity Act law was amended to provide new means of dealing with discrimination on the existing grounds of race, sex and disability, along with new provisions covering discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, sexual harassment, in superannuation and in private clubs with male and female members. South Australia was the second State after NSW to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexuality and sexual preference. Later discrimination on the grounds of intellectual disability (1989) and age (1991) were added.

• The independence of the judiciary was secured by removal of magistrates from the Public Service and the establishment of the independent Courts Administration Authority.

• The Police Special Branch was abolished and replace by an Operations Intelligence Section with guidelines for the collection of security information by it clarified and strengthened to exclude non-violent activity and peaceful dissent.

• A number of initiatives designed to enhance integrity in Government were introduced, including a Register of Interests for MPs, a Ministerial Code of Conduct, requirements for MPs to disclose donations and electoral expenditure, requirements for ministerial advisers to make declarations of interests, modernisation of the law relating to offences by public officials, a code of conduct for public .employees, a public sector fraud policy, whistleblowers protection and freedom of information.

• The Liquor Licensing Act was rewritten to move from a judicial to an administrative model for granting licences and to remove the requirement to establish the need for some category of outlets. This continued the liberalisation process begun by the Labor Governments in 1967.

• In 1983 Sumner recommended the appointment, on merit, of Elliott Johnston QC to the Supreme Court. Previous governments had declined to do so because of Johnston's membership of the Communist Party (which he relinquished on appointment).

In 1987 Sumner named himself as the subject of rumours in Parliament, the media and the community linking a sitting politician to organised crime. The issue took its toll on his health and he briefly stepped away from his Parliamentary duties. A National Crime Authority inquiry was initiated to investigate the allegations, and Sumner was unreservedly exonerated by its Operation Hydra Report, published in 1991. The report was tabled in Parliament.

Other Ministerial roles

Sumner held a number of other Ministerial portfolios at various times, including Minister of Correctional Services, Minister of Public Sector Reform, and Minister of Consumer Affairs.

As Minister of Corporate Affairs, he introduced a Public Corporations Act to deal with responsibilities of directors of public trading corporations. From 1987 to 1989, he also served as Chairman of Ministerial Council on Companies & Securities during the negotiations to establish national legislation and the Australian Securities Commission (ASC).

Sumner was Minister of Ethnic Affairs from 1982 until 1989 and in his 2016 interview with the Law Society recalls that while it was time-consuming it was “one of the best things I did”.

In a separate interview published by the Don Dunstan Foundation in 2008, he recalls how Dunstan, the then Premier, asked him to become the parliamentary liaison person with ethnic minority communities, “and that was I assume because I’d spent eight months in Italy in the year before I was elected in 1974 and spoke Italian reasonably well”.

As Minister, Sumner oversaw the work of the then Ethnic Affairs Commission, which is credited with advancing the development of multiculturalism in South Australia, and the growth of Ethnic Broadcasters Inc and radio station 5EBI. He maintained strong links within the Italian community and continued to study the Italian language.

According to academic Robert Holten, Sumner played an important role in articulating and implementing a universalistic rights-based approach ... with policy objectives in terms of “ensuring that the attitudes in politics, the bureaucracy and the country are changed to recognise multiculturalism as a main stream concept, not a policy exclusively for minorities but a policy for all Australians”.

National Native Title Tribunal

Sumner joined the NNTT in April 1995, having retired from Parliament the previous October. His role included mediating native title claims and conducting inquiries in relation to future acts, particularly the grant of mining tenements.

In 1996 he was appointed by the then President, Justice Robert French, to take responsibility for managing the NNTT's future act operations in Western Australia, as the number of applications rose significantly. During this period he spend much of his time working between Perth and Adelaide.

Sumner conducted or participated in the major test cases on the right to negotiate provisions of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) covering expedited procedure objection and future act determination inquiries and the requirement for good faith negotiations. In 2009, he co-wrote a paper dealing with the major issues which had been before the Tribunal and Federal Court and criticisms made of the Tribunal's approach.

In South Australia most of his work involved native title claim mediation and attempting to resolve matters where there were overlapping claims.

Current activities

Sumner continues to be involved with legal, political and constitutional matters. He contributes to academic and legal publications and is an occasional commentator in the media on issues both general and specific to South Australia.

Sumner was a member of the Law Foundation from 2013 to 2019 and in 2020 became a Patron of the Justice Reform Initiative, which advocates for policies that reduce levels of imprisonment. Since 2012 he has been a Co-Patron of Reconciliation SA.

He is also a longstanding member of the Adelaide Parklands Association and concerned about what he sees as their increasing alienation by public and private building development.

Personal life

Sumner lives in Adelaide with his wife, Dr Suzanne Roux, who he met in 1976 during the first Adelaide Italian Festival. The couple has two children.

Roux was born in Sydney while her father was posted there with the Free French Navy during World War II. An actress, she performed in the 1968 Adelaide Festival of Arts, ran a business in arts administration, was engaged by the Adelaide Festival Centre and for three years was Director of the Prospect Art Gallery. She later studied and tutored philosophy at the Adelaide University and Flinders University. She was awarded a PhD by Flinders for her thesis on aspects of the history and philosophy of science.

Sumner remains a keen follower of Australian Rules Football. He was No 1 ticket holder for West Torrens in the SA National Football League in 1990 then joint No 1 Ticket holder for the merged Woodville West Torrens club from 1991 to 1997. In the VFL/AFL he has always supported Geelong.

Awards

Member of the Order of Australia (AM) – 26 January 2001. For service to the South Australian Parliament, to the law, particularly establishing basic principles of justice for victims of crime, to multiculturalism and to the National Native Title Tribunal.

Centenary Medal – General List – April 2001. For service to the community, particularly through law and the parliament.

Commendatore. Awarded by the President of the Italian Republic – December 1989. In recognition of services to Italy, its language and its culture, and for sustained works undertaken in the interest of our country and the Italian community in South Australia, while discharging his senior Ministerial duties.

Certificate of Appreciation, World Society of Victimology – August 1987. For his substantial contribution to the campaign to achieve greater recognition throughout the world for the rights of victims of crime and the abuse of power.

Life Member, Victims of Crime Service (now Victim Support Service Inc.) – October 1986. In appreciation of his dedicated service in furthering the cause of victims of crime.

Life Member, Ethnic Broadcasters Inc – September 1989. In recognition of his outstanding service in the interests of 5EBI-FM.

Selected commentary

• Chris Sumner and Robert Hill, “Why jailing is failing South Australia”, In Daily, Fri May 27, 2022.

• Geoffrey Lindell and Christopher Sumner, “The suggested effect of a South Australian Parliamentary Vote of No Confidence in a Minister: Is it certain.” The Adelaide Law Review, Volume 45, Issue 1, 2024, 114

• The Hon Chris Sumner AM, “Don Dunstan’s law reform legacy”. Law Society of South Australia Bulletin, October 2017, 16. Don Dunstan's law reform legacy

• Chris J Sumner, “Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform for South Australia” in Clement Macintyre and John Williams (Eds.), Peace, Order and Good Government, State Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform (Wakefield Press, 2003).

• Chris J Sumner “ Response to ‘Nemer and the DPP’”, Law Society of South Australia Bulletin, Volume 26, Number 7, August 2004, 26.

• Hon Chris Sumner AM. “The role of the Attorney General & the challenges of riding the ‘law & order’ tiger”, Law Society of South Australia Bulletin, February 2018, 32