Kate Harrison

Kate’s experience includes advising: 

• Bernard Collaery, the former Attorney-General of the ACT and lawyer for Timor Leste, in defending criminal charges involving national security issues.

• The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence in relation to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

• The Commonwealth of Australia as Solicitors Assisting the Robodebt Royal Commission, involving the extensive investigation of the Government’s use of legal services, decision-making processes, and litigation approach.

• The Commonwealth of Australia (and its departments and agencies) on its response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. 

• Unions NSW in the High Court on a constitutional claim involving electoral law. This decision affirms the importance of the implied freedom of political communication in Australian democracy.

• A hotel chain in relation to the Victorian Board of Inquiry into the COVID-19 quarantine program.

• Westpac in relation to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.

• Acting for the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department and the Office of the Royal Commission in assisting to conduct the public inquiry into the alleged mistreatment of children at youth detention centres in the Northern Territory. 

• The Catholic Church in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In this capacity, she has managed a team including, at times, up to five partners/special counsel and ten lawyers. 

• Music industry collecting societies (ARIA and PPCA) in Copyright Tribunal hearings seeking determination of rates for the use of commercial music in nightclubs, gyms, and in pay TV broadcasts.