Politics Kerr was the Labor candidate in the
Division of Braddon in the
1977 Australian federal election, losing to future
Premier of Tasmania Ray Groom. In the Australian federal election in
1987, Kerr defeated the sitting Liberal member,
Michael Hodgman QC, for the Hobart-based seat of Denison to become the first Labor member elected from Tasmania since the dismissal of the
Whitlam Government in 1975. Kerr served in the
Australian House of Representatives as Member for
Denison from 11 July 1987 to 19 July 2010. Prior to entering politics, Kerr acted as
Crown Counsel in the Tasmanian Solicitor-General's Department, as lecturer in constitutional law and Dean of the Faculty of Law at the
University of Papua New Guinea, and as Principal Solicitor for the
Aboriginal Legal Service of New South Wales. Kerr served as
Minister for Justice from 1993 to 1996, and briefly also as
Attorney-General in 1993. Prime Minister
Paul Keating's original choice for Attorney-General in 1993 had been
Michael Lavarch, but Lavarch's re-election was delayed by the death of an opposing candidate for the seat of
Dickson; Kerr held the portfolio in the interim until Lavarch won the resulting supplementary election. Kerr served as Attorney-General for 26 days. Kerr was a member of the Opposition Shadow Ministry from 1996 to 2001. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs in the Rudd Ministry in 2007. Prior to his appointment to the
First Rudd Ministry, Kerr was Co-Convenor of the Australian Parliamentary Group for Drug Law Reform, a cross-party group that advocates harm minimisation as being more effective, more cost-efficient and less harmful than zero-tolerance when it comes to dealing with drug use. On 14 December 2009, Kerr resigned his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs and indicated he intended to return to legal practice. Kerr retired from politics at the
2010 election. Upon Kerr's retirement, the previously safe Labor seat of Denison was won by
Andrew Wilkie, an independent.
Law Kerr is the author of
Annotated Constitution of Papua New Guinea (1985),
Essays on the Constitution (1985),
Reinventing Socialism (1992) and
Elect the Ambassador; Building Democracy in a Globalised World (2001). Kerr was leading counsel in the
High Court of Australia case
Plaintiff S157 v The Commonwealth, which concerned a
privative clause in the
Migration Act 1958 (Cth) and the availability of
judicial review under
section 75 of the Constitution of Australia. In 2010,
Michael Kirby described the decision as "one of the most important in recent years for its affirmation of the centrality in [Australian] constitutional law of the
rule of law."{{cite speech Quoted in {{cite speech Kerr was appointed a
senior counsel in 2004, and as adjunct professor of law, Faculty of Law,
Queensland University of Technology in 2007. Kerr has acted as counsel in the
High Court of Australia, the
Federal Court of Australia, the
Family Court of Australia, the
Supreme Court of Tasmania, the
District Court of New South Wales, the
Supreme Court of New South Wales, and the
Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea. In 2010, Kerr became a founding member of Michael Kirby Chambers in Hobart where he practised as a barrister specialising in public, constitutional, administrative, refugee and human rights law, and appellate work. On 12 April 2012, he was appointed to the
Federal Court of Australia, taking his seat on the bench on 10 May 2012. In 2015, with the consent of the Australian Government, he was appointed by
Papua New Guinea as its nominee as an arbitrator in a proceeding in the
International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Concurrently with his judicial duties, from 2012 to 2017 he served as President of the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal. He was Chair of the Council of Australasian Tribunals (COAT) from 2014 to 2017. He is one of six former federal politicians to have served on the Federal Court, along with
Robert Ellicott,
Nigel Bowen,
Tony Whitlam,
Merv Everett and
John Reeves. Kerr ceased to serve as a Judge of the Federal Court of Australia on 25 February 2022 upon reaching the statutory retirement age of 70. He chairs the National Appeals and Review Panel for Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd. In 2023–2024 he undertook a 20 Year Review of the Office of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. ==Honours==