Kate Auty

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Kate Auty

Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Australian Capital Territory

Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Barrister, Victorian Bar

Chair, Banksia Foundation Ltd , NGO, Melbourne

Director, Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia, Business, Sydney

Current Positions

Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Australian Capital Territory

Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Barrister, Victorian Bar

Chair, Banksia Foundation Ltd , NGO, Melbourne

Director, Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia, Business, Sydney

Previous Positions

Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, Victorian Government

Chair, Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation, Victorian Government

Member, Victorian Premier, Victorian Government

Chair NECTAR (National Electronic Collaborative and Research Tools), Federal Government, Canberra

Member, AURIN (Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network), Federal Government, Canberra

Member, Murray Darling Basin Authority Advisory Committee on Social Economic and Environmental Sciences, Federal Government, Canberra

Member, Macpherson Smith Rural Foundation, NGO, Victoria

Chair, La Trobe University Transforming Human Societies Advisory Committee, La Trobe University

Member, La Trobe University Securing Food Water and Environment Advisory Committee, La Trobe University

Magistrate, Coroner, Mining Warden - Western Desert and Goldfields, Magistrates Court of Western Australia

Magistrate, Koori Court Magistrate, Coroner - Melbourne and north east Victoria, Magistrates Court of Victoria

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Member, Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

Professor Kate Auty is passionate about diversity and inclusive community development. She is involved in a number of community based intermediary organisations in respect of environment, climate change, energy and Indigenous matters. She continues as a member of the Victorian Bar (1992-).

Kate is a Professorial Fellow (University of Melbourne), she chairs the Banksia Foundation Ltd Board and she is a co-opted Director in the board of the Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia.

Her formal role is as the Australian Capital Territory's Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment (2016-21). She previously held roles as a Vice Chancellor's Fellow (University of Melbourne), Chair of the Advisory Board for the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, and as an advisory committee member for big data NCRIS boards. She was the Victorian Government Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability (2009-2014).

Prior to undertaking roles in environmental sustainability Kate was a magistrate and mining warden in the goldfields and western desert in WA (2004-2009); the inaugural Koori Court magistrate, magistrate and coroner in Victoria (1999-2004); an academic with Deakin University; and a senior lawyer for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia where she worked to incorporate an understanding of the underlying issues across a very broad spectrum of sectors.

In 2008, Kate was appointed a Charles Joseph La Trobe Fellow with the Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities at La Trobe University. In 2008 and 2009, she was the Chair of the Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation and also a member of Premier John Brumby's Reference Committee on Climate Change.

Kate holds tertiary qualifications in environmental science, law and history, having graduated from University of Melbourne (Arts Hons/Law), Monash University (Masters in Environmental Science), and La Trobe University (PhD in Law and Legal Studies). She also holds a Diploma of International Environmental Law from UNITAR. Kate is member of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand and is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.