John Michael Spender KC died on 13 October 2022. A patrician barrister raised in a politically charged household, Spender KC was one of the legal profession’s finest exponents.

Born on 2 December 1935, Spender KC was the son of the Honourable Sir Percy Spender KCVO KBE KC – a politician, diplomat and judge of the International Court of Justice – and Lady Spender (née Jean Maud Henderson) who was an accomplished writer of crime fiction.

As a result of his father’s lengthy tenure as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States in the 1950s, Spender KC completed his schooling at Cranbrook and then in the USA, in New Haven Connecticut at Yale. He had a charmed life as a young man and was a frequent visitor to homes of the titans of American industry.

Intent on creating his own world, Spender KC returned to Australia and came to the Bar in 1961. He had previously been called to Gray’s Inn in London and that admission gave him seniority at the Sydney Bar. The young John Spender went to work for Justice Barney Collins in the Supreme Court to familiarise himself with procedure and the way the Bar worked in Sydney. Those he came to know as a young barrister in this Post War era included on the bench: their Honours Mr Justice Cyril Ambrose Walsh (as he then was), Mr Justice Martin Francis Hardie and Mr Justice James Kenneth Manning, along with a younger set at the Bar: Nigel Bowen QC, AB Kerrigan QC, HH Glass and MM Helsham (as they then were) among many others. He eventually practised from the Eleventh Floor of St James’s Hall Chambers. There, at the basement level of the building , was a tight car space reserved for his own use where he regularly parked his father’s perfect vintage Rolls Royce Phantom (never a scrape).

Spender KC was immediately busy and was careful about which cases he took. On more than one occasion his taste for politics intruded into his life in the law. Until about 1974 when Spender KC was appointed one of Her Majesty’s Counsel, he devoted a great amount of time and enthusiasm to the Liberal Party in Sydney. He frequented the homes of party luminaries, such as the Right Honourable Sir William and Lady McMahon and Sir John and Lady Atwill, to crystalise his conception of politics.

At around this time, in the mid 1970s, he met the charming fledgling fashion designer Carla Zampatti and they married in 1975.

Spender KC was imbued with old world manners and performed superlatively in his profession and in the public eye. Those who remember him as an advocate recall his stylish manner – a combination of knowing what to say and when to say it.

He became the Member for North Sydney in 1980. Spender KC is remembered as an individualist politician, ever wary but jovially mixing with politicians of all persuasions. Famously he crossed the floor in his first term of Parliament. Notably this was over a statutory amendment which would stop witnesses in the National Crime Commission being paid their legal costs. It was the sense of injustice that moved Spender KC to advocate for equal access to justice, and it was an occasion of which he was particularly proud.

Spender KC was a great proponent of women’s rights – perhaps encouraged by the examples of his mother and wife.

Unusually for a politician, Spender KC was a great protector of the media, especially of the freedoms inherent in political commentary. He successfully drove reform in respect of parliamentary privilege which allowed journalists such as Laurie Oakes to refer to politicians as ‘drunks and bludgers.’ The old laws of defamation – libel and slander – had until then allowed journalists to be prosecuted for reporting such remarks.

Spender KC was appointed by John Howard as the Shadow Attorney-General and later the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.

John Howard appointed Spender KC as Australia’s Ambassador to the French Republic in 1996, a position which he held until 2000. Spender KC and his wife Carla Zampatti resided at the Palais Seidler on the Rue Jean Ray which possessed magnificent views of the Eiffel Tower. With his wife, Spender KC hosted many foreign dignitaries and Australian visitors, not to mention European royalty. Arguably Zampatti’s profile as an internationally famous Australian clothing designer surpassed that of her spouse. In their role in Paris they became one of the most memorable Australian couples to have ever set foot on the international stage.

During these years Spender KC navigated a particularly delicate impasse between Australia and France when French nuclear testing was underway in the Pacific (shades of Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia). Spender KC successfully first mollified and then enhanced the relationships that largely still exist between France and Australia. Some say he was born for that role. He was appointed a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur for his work to strengthen Franco-Australian relations.

During his appointment to Paris Spender KC also held diplomatic roles representing Australia to Portugal and then to Cyprus. Spender KC and Zampatti returned to Sydney in 2000 and resumed life in the Eastern Suburbs. Spender KC and Zampatti lived in a mondaine world. Their daughters, Bianca and Allegra, each forged successful careers in their chosen spheres in fashion and business then politics respectively, with Allegra, in 2022, becoming the third generation of her family to sit in federal parliament.

Spender KC and Zampatti separated in 2008 and he later married Catherine. Spender KC was survived by his wife Catherine Spender, his daughters Allegra Spender MP and Bianca Spender, his stepson Alex Schuman and his five grandchildren. Spender KC’s obsequies were held at St Mark’s Church Darling Point on 24 October 2022. He will be remembered as someone who was not only worldly, infinitely well-mannered, courteous and possessing the requisite sangfroid required of diplomacy, but also as a jovial conversationalist and a most gracious individual.

The Sydney Bar laments his passing. BN