Review

Peter Edwards' biography of Justice Robert Hope celebrates a many-sided legal figure

By Mark Thomas
July 11 2020 - 12:00am
Justice Robert Hope "possessed a wide repertoire of skills to make his point". Shown here with the 6000 pages of transcripts taken during the royal commission into Australia's security and intelligence agencies.
Justice Robert Hope "possessed a wide repertoire of skills to make his point". Shown here with the 6000 pages of transcripts taken during the royal commission into Australia's security and intelligence agencies.
  • Law, Politics and Intelligence: A Life of Robert Hope, by Peter Edwards. NewSouth. $49.99.

Serious, thorough biographies in fields like law, politics and intelligence usually chronicle the lives of renowned national leaders. By contrast, Peter Edwards celebrates a man who "never held a political or official position in a policy-making institution" and who retired more than 30 years ago. This particular man lived for more than four decades in the same house, married to the same woman, working in the same profession. His name now adorns Canberra's former Patents Office, but his true achievements stretch well beyond the cocoon of the Office of National Intelligence.

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