Role of the Lieutenant Governor

The Letters Patent appointing the Lieutenant Governor provide that if the office of Governor is vacant or the Governor is administering the government of the Commonwealth of Australia or, not having appointed a Deputy Governor, is for any reason unable to act as Governor, the Lieutenant Governor shall have and may exercise all the powers conferred on the Governor by the Letters Patent by which the Governor was appointed.
 

The Honourable Christopher Shanahan

Biography

The Honourable Christopher Shanahan was sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Tasmania and Lieutenant Governor of Tasmania at Government House on 20 January 2025.

His Honour was admitted to the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1984, the Supreme Court of NSW in 1989, and the High Court of Australia in 1990 before being appointed senior counsel in 2004. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and served as Vice-President of the Western Australia Bar Association from 2005 to 2007.  

His Honour founded Murray Chambers in Perth, Western Australia, in 2017. He has served as Acting Commissioner of the Western Australia Corruption and Crime Commission, Acting Information Commissioner for Western Australia, and as a Senior Sessional Member of the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia.

His Honour has a background in legal education and is an experienced advocacy trainer, and was a member of the Australian Bar Association's Advocacy Training Council from 2008-2017. He taught in the South-Eastern Circuit's International Advanced Advocacy Course at Keble College in Oxford in 2005, 2010 and 2024. His Honour has also lectured in law at Macquarie and Murdoch Universities and taught at Curtin University where he is an Adjunct Clinical Professor. In 1997, whilst teaching at Murdoch University, he founded the community legal centre known as SCALES as a site for clinical legal education. In 2024 he taught his Comparative Anti-Corruption Course at Ghent University in Belgium. His work has been published both as articles and continuing professional modules.