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Lao Tse, “If you do not resign in time, you will not only lose your fame but, unable any longer to perform your
duties adequately, you also betray your trust”. Whacko, that’s just what I needed. “We’re off” I said to my wife’.
After just three months of freedom, however, he was asked by the Commonwealth to continue on as a resident
Judge of the Federal Court of Western Australia.
He returned to the Northern Territory, again at the behest of the Commonwealth, in April 1987 as Acting Judge
of the Supreme Court. He served until October of that year when he was requested by the Prime Minister to be
Commissioner of the joint State-Federal Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody—which he has
described as ‘one of the saddest and most difficult tasks of my life’. Initially appointed to inquire into the deaths
of some 39 Aboriginal people over the preceding decade, he soon found that there had in fact been approximately
100 deaths. Seeking assistance, four further Commissioners were appointed with Jim Muirhead at the helm and,
in December 1988, he issued an interim report designed to minimise continuation of custodial deaths and to bring
to the attention of governments practices and procedures that required immediate attention. After making these
56 interim recommendations, dealing with practices rather than philosophies, he resigned from that position in
April 1989.
On 1 July 1989, he took up a two-year appointment as Administrator of the Northern Territory, this being
extended by the Commonwealth Government in 1991 for a further 12 months. In mid-1992, Jim Muirhead sought,
and was granted, a further extension until 4 December 1992, on which date he chose to retire. The Territory’s
14th Administrator, and third since self-government, Muirhead took a distinctive approach to this office. He used
Government House extensively for official engagements and courtesy calls, and he opened the house to the public
on four occasions for the National Trust. He was also responsible for instituting a Government House Advisory
Committee to advise on and oversee continuing improvements and renovations to the house to maintain its historic
charm and significance. He expressed his reasoning as follows: ‘We take the view that Government House,
that unique old building known as “The House of Seven Gables”, with such an interesting history, belongs to the
people of the Territory—it is their house and should be utilised as such. It is to the credit of Governments of all
persuasions that the old place has been repaired and reinstated, not demolished, despite severe damage resulting
from both war and cyclone’.
During Jim Muirhead’s term as Administrator, he was Patron of 74 organisations, and held appointments as
Deputy Prior of the Order of St John in the Northern Territory, Chief Scout in the Northern Territory, and Chairman
of the Nugget Coombs Forum for Indigenous Studies at the North Australia Research Unit. He was also the
second Honorary Colonel of the North West Mobile Force (NORFORCE), a unit some 500-strong responsible for
surveillance in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
In comparison with earlier administrators who held power in the Northern Territory in their own right, Muirhead
said of the modern office of administrator, ‘I observe the Administrators I have known have performed their tasks
well—yet all differently. The exercise of constitutional responsibilities within the Territory, presiding at meetings
of Executive Council, is not normally a difficult exercise. But my predecessors saw their role in much broader
perspective, a perspective inevitably influenced by the destruction of Darwin in the cyclone, rebuilding processes
and legislative changes. Since self-government the constitutional role of the Administrator in the legislative
process has probably reduced. But the people of the Territory, as a whole, have seen more of their Administrators
and I suspect this will continue’. Referring to his frequently called upon role as a public speaker, Muirhead often
drew attention to the fact that, as a vice-regal representative, he was expected to remain mute on political or
controversial issues: ‘I can’t speak even vaguely politically (at least in this Territory) as many of the great issues
confronting society today are issues principally because politicians have made them so, I am virtually muzzled—
the classic stuffed shirt—a squeaker of meaningless cliches—robust no more’.
This, and other statements notwithstanding, Muirhead drew headlines in the Territory print media on Anzac
Day 1992, and great support from the populace, when he referred to attempts to distance Australia from its British
heritage. Addressing an audience in Katherine, he said: ‘Those of us today, who served in the Second World War
and recall the history and progress of that war, may be rather perplexed by some of the utterances we hear from
those who do not remember those days. I certainly am. We hear criticisms today which seem to be politically
inspired and directed largely at England. Complaints which suggest that the British left us in the lurch in times
of need, that Australia’s contribution to the Middle East war and other areas were undervalued and placed our
country at risk. I think it better not to take too much to heart. I hope it is a temporary phenomenon. Those who so
speak, do so for their own reasons. They seem to have no concept of the then competing demands of total global
warfare, of fluctuating exigencies. Such statements tend to disregard the courage of the British Armed Services and
England’s civilian population under air attack in those critical days when the future of the free world, including
Australia, depended almost entirely on the capacity of the people of the United Kingdom to fight almost alone and
to endure when the odds were well and truly weighed against them. So let us leave history to the historians, but
never turn our back on old friends’.
He often spoke on the topic of the Australian Aborigine, a subject on which he became an authority from his
long association with the relationship between the Aboriginal people and the law. One of his earliest associations
was as a party to the now famous decision of the Northern Territory Supreme Court in the case of Regina v Anunga
in 1976, which lay down guidelines (the ‘Anunga Rules’) for the interrogation of Aboriginal suspects.
For his service in the Second World War, Jim Muirhead received the 1939–1945 Star, Pacific Star, War Medal
and Australian Service Medal, while in 1977 he received Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee Medal. In 1989 he was
appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John (KStJ) and on Australia Day 1991 he was appointed Companion
of the Order of Australia (AC) in the General Division, for public service and for service to the law.