Nominated by then Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Justice Mary Gaudron was appointed at age 43 to be a justice of the High Court of Australia. Over the following 16 years, she was an instrumental member of a productive Court, contributing key judgments to all areas of the law.
Justice Gaudron is perhaps best remembered popularly for the Mabo case, where, in a joint judgment with Justice Deane, she said that Australia’s past treatment of Indigenous Australians was “the darkest aspect of the history of this nation”.