[1] On joining the Commonwealth Public Service, his experience was in the Department of External Territories, the Crown Solicitor's Office and legislative drafting both in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
[2] He rose to become a Deputy Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, leaving the role in 1980 to join the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, from which he retired in 1987.
When the proposal was reintroduced and blocked a second time, Hawke was in a position to seek a double dissolution from the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen under Section 57 of the Constitution.
Stone contacted Smith to confirm the details, advised his parliamentary colleagues, and the government was embarrassed on 23 September 1987 when asked questions in parliament that revealed they were not aware of this development.
Although the government could have sought to force the issue by having certain matters tested in the High Court, public opinion had now come into play, and it was also decidedly against the idea of identification cards.
There were what Michael Kirby characterised as "unprecedented demonstrations of popular opposition",[6] with rallies all over the country, and newspapers and talk-back radio inundated with anti-Australia Card sentiment.
Graham Greenleaf, writing in The Computer Law and Security Report, Vol 3 No 6, March/April 1988, wrote "There has never been a debate like it in the letters page; there has never been such a cry of opposition from the nation over one topic…".
Ewart Smith drew attention to a consequence of this: the extension of the maximum term of the [then] current House of Representatives, which became a telling political point for the opponents.