Thursday 21 June 2007 was an important day for me.It marked the final episode of a criminal trial in which I had been involved for over four years. I telephoned my wife to tell her the news. She asked, ‘Are you near a television?’ I assumed, with some surprise, that the news of this particular case’s conclusion in the High Court that day was being announced. ‘No,’ she said, ‘John Howard is taking over the Territory’, writes Rex Wild.