Australian of the Year: legal ‘warrior woman’ Rowena Orr claimed serious scalps

Rowena Orr QC earned the nickname ‘Shock And Orr’ for her scathing take-down of financial industry heavyweights.

Australian of the Year nominee Rowena Orr QC.

From her dogged questioning to her brutal one-liners, Rowena Orr QC earned the nickname “Shock And Orr” for her scathing take-down of financial industry heavyweights as chief interrogator during the banking royal commission.

The Melbourne-based barrister has not only claimed some scalps during the hearings, sparking a slew of high-profile resignations, but a nomination for this newspaper’s Australian of the Year award.

Educated at the University of Queensland and Cambridge in Britain, where she gained degrees in law and economics and a masters of philosophy in criminology, the 46-year-old has long been recognised as one of our top legal eagles, having been appointed a silk in 2014 after signing the bar roll in 2002.

Hand-picked for the role by former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne, Ms Orr, flanked by Michael Hodge QC, has fronted the royal commission into misconduct within Australia’s banking and financial services industries since the first round of hearings began last March.

In that time she forced AMP chair Catherine Brenner to address allegations the nation’s largest wealth manager had lied to the corporate regulator about charging customers for advice they never received. Ms Brenner later stepped down over the fees-for-no-service scandal, which also cost chief executive Craig Meller and chief legal counsel Brian Salter their jobs.

Ms Orr’s grilling of CBA chair Catherine Livingstone over the bank’s former chief executive Ian Narev and his $2.862 million bonus, saw the banking executive concede the payment was “inappropriate”.

The interrogation earned Ms Orr a band of fans on Twitter, who described the exchange as a “trainwreck” and her as a “warrior woman”.

With Ms Orr described by one senior barrister as a “meteor crossing the sky”, observers are suggesting she will end up as a judge on the Victorian Supreme Court or Federal Court benches.

Findings from the royal commission are expected to be delivered by February 1.

Readers are encouraged to nominate their Australian of the Year by sending an email to [e-mail]. The Australian’s Australian of the Year will be announced on January 19.