In the hot seat

As the clock ticks over to midday on a sunny Tuesday morning, Kate Boyd asks if we could turn on the Legislative Assembly’s Question Time. Normally, the Secretary of the Cabinet Office would be watching it at Parliament House. “When parliament is sitting The Cabinet Office will kind of bunker down,” Boyd tells the Law Society Journal. 

During a photoshoot with the Journal, Boyd is watching Question Time from a makeshift studio in the Law Society building in Sydney’s CBD. Even as she poses for the photographer, Boyd is watching and listening intently, as the government fields questions. The proceedings are being streamed on a laptop, close by. Nicknamed the “Bear Pit”, Question Time is a forum for key policy issues to be thrashed out. Between photos, Boyd is also fielding questions from the Journal. She looks at ease and is clearly no stranger to thinking on her feet. 

Boyd is closely monitoring parliament on this day, because the government has just announced significant bail reforms to address the domestic violence epidemic. It’s an issue that has been dominating headlines and attracted widespread community protest.

Boyd is one of the youngest people to be appointed to this position. Before stepping into the role of Secretary of the newly created Cabinet Office in March, Boyd held various positions in government including Deputy Secretary and General Counsel in both The Cabinet Office and the Department of Premier and Cabinet. 

Boyd carries the baton of continuing the history and legacy of the office. The first Cabinet Office was established in 1988 and its main function was to provide policy advice to the Premier and the State Cabinet.

“[The first Cabinet Office] was hugely influential in driving really big picture policy thinking, things, like the federalism initiative, that have had a lasting impact on the wellbeing of the nation,” says Boyd.

The Cabinet Office is responsible for providing advice on important issues, affecting not just NSW, but the whole country. Those issues include housing, climate change and violence against women. Stepping into the role at such a momentous time, “you feel the weight of responsibility,” Boyd says. However, she is full of optimism for what lies ahead as the Cabinet Office has “an institutional legacy, that we are keen to build on and drive forward.”

Violence against women is a pressing issue that has been on the rise in recent years. According to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOSCAR), there were 36,072 domestic assault incidents in 2023. The number increased by 2,275 incidents compared with 2022. 

The NSW Government has introduced legal reforms that will make it more difficult for those accused of serious domestic violence offences to obtain bail. The changes include reversing the presumption of bail for serious domestic violence offences, increasing the number of “show cause” offences and putting the onus on alleged offenders to demonstrate why they should be allowed to reside in the community.

Other reforms involve electronic monitoring of people charged with serious domestic violence offences who are on bail and increasing the categories of offences for which bail decisions can be “stayed”. This means the accused person will remain in custody while prosecutors contest their release in the Supreme Court.

The NSW Government also announced a $230 million package to deal with the response to domestic and family violence through a range of measures, including primary prevention, early intervention, and crisis response measures.

Boyd is relishing the chance to take on some of the state’s most pressing policy areas. “The Cabinet Office has some of the best public servants in the nation here working on some of the hardest challenges,” she says.  “[S]o it’s an incredible opportunity for me.”

It is an immense responsibility and to cope with the demands of the job, it takes the right combination of skill and values. Key to all of this is to have “integrity, integrity, integrity,” says Boyd.

“I just think for any lawyer, but particularly in government law, when you have that duty to maintain public trust in government, and you do that through having integrity in everything that you do.” Boyd emphasises that integrity and values go hand in hand. “You show your values through integrity.”

The significance of being appointed to the position is not lost on Boyd. “I was hugely honoured to be appointed to this role. I just feel government has given me so much in terms of my career. It’s just such an honour to have the opportunity to give back in this leadership role,” she says.

The importance of education

Despite her elevation to the top, she concedes that things have not always been smooth sailing. Reflecting on her roots, Boyd credits her teachers with providing the impetus to study and pursue a career in law. “My teachers were my biggest inspiration. I didn’t come from a family background of lawyers. We had a pretty disadvantaged upbringing,” she says. “I grew up in public housing, single mum, four kids. Things were pretty tough. But my wonderful mum understood the power of education and that was always her priority for us. And my teachers, their caring investment in me and my progress, and their advice to me about pursuing a career in law, was sort of everything.”

Reminiscing about her journey brought back a lot of memories for Boyd, and her recollections about her education and school days are clearly happy ones. Boyd credits her legal studies teacher, Tim Kelly, as an amazing mentor and support to her in embarking on a legal career. “… [Y]ou are so impressionable at that age and particularly from a background like mine, so [the advice to study law] was very influential. … I, to this day, have a huge debt of gratitude to the teachers for setting me on this path, which has been such a rewarding one.”

While her decision to pursue a legal career came about due to gentle pushing from influential educators, Boyd loved studying law from the outset and was fortunate enough to benefit from “some great public policy initiatives like scholarships and other things that really set me on that path and supported me,” she says.

But she never forgot her origins and says “to come back and apply my skills in government is a wonderful reward and it really aligns very deeply with me personally, because of my background. To be able to give back in that way, it’s very special.”

Boyd started her law career as a paralegal at top tier firm, Allens and spent seven years practising at the firm. She reflects on her time in private practice as “one of the most productive and important periods of time in my career. Just to be surrounded by these brilliant legal minds, people with enormous professional skills and being exposed to that was hugely formative for me.”

There is a sense of deep appreciation of the culture and training offered at top tier law firms, which Boyd says is not comparable to other sectors. “The culture of excellence in that firm, and other top tier firms, I think, has stayed with me throughout my career.

“It’s such a unique experience really to … go through a clerkship and to start as a law graduate with that peer group. Those connections continue to this day, and I am really grateful for that as well.

“I look back really fondly on my time at Allens and have huge affection for all of the partners and other people that trained me there. … [T]he professional skills that I acquired there are hugely important, and it really set me up well to contribute in government, where there isn’t the same resource necessarily, in terms of training and development. So, I would recommend to anyone that path and to definitely consider a career in a law firm.”

Boyd’s transition from private practice into government was somewhat serendipitous. She saw an ad in the paper for the Department of Premier and Cabinet and it instantly resonated with her. Looking back, she puts it down to an alignment of values. “As much as I loved my time in private practice, the idea of working in government struck a chord with me at a deeper level, in terms of my personal values,” she says.

When asked about the biggest difference between private practice and working as a government lawyer, Boyd jokes “the biggest difference is the catering … I really miss it.”

In substance though, Boyd explains that working in those two roles is actually very similar, as both require analytical skills, attention to detail, commitment to excellence and a client focus. “All those things are critical in government law, just as they are in private practice,” she says,

However, Boyd says there is a distinction between the two, as government lawyers also require a good knowledge of government, Parliament and the institutions and the authorising environment in which government decisions are made. When talking about her role and what she does on a daily basis, it is clear that Boyd is passionate about her work and the effect it has on people in the wider community. “There is so much that I love about [a career in government]. I love [the] role we play as guardians of the principles of representative and responsible government and of the public interest … [it] is such an important role and it’s one that I take really seriously,” Boyd says.

With the heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders, Boyd plays a crucial role in leading elected decision makers through caretaker, to the formation of government and guiding the government through cabinet processes and conventions.

This is a momentous task, and it is one which Boyd appears to take on with pride and with ease.

She stresses that it is a “huge privilege” to be able to advise ministers on their authorising environment as ministers and through that function, “you really have an opportunity to build public trust in government.”

Public trust in government

Public trust in government and institutions has fluctuated over the past decade. Although trust increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been on the decline in recent years. According to the “Trust in Australian public services: 2023 Annual Report,” published by the Australian Public Service Commission, general trust and satisfaction in the public service has fallen from 76 per cent (satisfaction) and 64 per cent (trust) in 2021 during the pandemic to 72 per cent (satisfaction) and 61 per cent (trust) in 2023.

The level of trust and satisfaction people have in government in 2023 is still higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019, when trust was at 58 per cent and satisfaction was at 67 per cent.

The same report found that 61 per cent of people reported trusting public services compared with 50 per cent across OECD countries in 2021. Interestingly, the level of trust varied, based on the person’s life satisfaction, age, education level, gender, income and language background.

Despite trust in government falling, Boyd sees her role as providing a conduit or opportunity to build it. “To play a role in providing the government with the best evidence-based advice on policy is critical to building public trust in government. We know that public trust in government is based on competence,” she says.

“Being able to influence that through high quality legal and policy advice is what I love most about working in government.”

Although appearing in court is no longer part of her job description, Boyd finds that she often ends up drawing on those skills. “I attend cabinet meetings with the Premier. You are presenting in that forum in a way that is not dissimilar to the way you would advocate in a courtroom,” she says.

A common misconception held by the general population about a career in the public service is that “it’s slow”. In reality, “it’s not slow. It’s scarily fast-paced,” says Boyd. “The pace at which government, particularly state governments work to deliver tangible outcomes for people is pretty extraordinary and I think the pandemic really brought that to the fore. So, I think that would be the biggest misconception.”

Government does not operate in a vacuum and its role intersects with other players and factors such as the media cycle and the electoral terms, all of which can impact the pace and speed of decision making. As Secretary, “the opportunity that you get not only to work, fast-paced in a way that reacts to the issues of the day, but to ensure that is anchored in strategy in a way that achieves the government’s overall objectives,” she says, adding this is “the big challenge and the big opportunity in working in a central agency in government.

“You, as a public servant, have to be accountable for your advice and take carriage of matters in the same way that you do in private practice. I think the element of difference there is that you are often working to a Minister who is individually accountable to the Parliament but also part of a government that is collectively accountable to the people of NSW and to the Parliament.

“That dimension is incredibly different from private practice but so rewarding to be in the front row, advising those decision makers that bear a huge weight of responsibility for people’s lives and making a real difference in people’s lives. To be trusted and to be providing advice to them is a real privilege.”

Michael Coutts-Trotter, who worked closely with Boyd when he was the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet (the Cabinet Office’s previous iteration) and she was the agency’s General Counsel, told the Journal that she is “[a] brilliant lawyer, a thoughtful and thorough policy-maker and someone who cares deeply about ensuring the integrity of our public institutions.

“Kate was an indispensable general counsel and quite brilliant at finding effective legal and policy solutions to the problems and events that batter a First Minister’s department each day,” he said.

“She’ll be a marvellous steward of The Cabinet Office.”

Boyd has been at the forefront of some of the most momentous events in recent history. She was awarded a Public Service Medal for her work during the 2019-2020 bushfires and the role she played during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That fateful bushfire season was immense in its magnitude and severity. Remembered as the worst recorded in NSW, 11,774 fires raged across the state. 5.3 million hectares of land was decimated and according to the NSW Rural Fire Service, 2,439 homes were destroyed. It has been estimated that more than 800 million animals perished. According to the NSW Government, infrastructure losses came close to $1 billion and more than 600,000 hectares of pasture was damaged.

The NSW Bushfire Inquiry was established to examine what happened during the season and to identify key differences to previous fire seasons. It made 76 recommendations for how the state could better prepare for and respond to future bushfires.

Boyd played a critical role in supporting the Premier in delivering the government’s response to the bushfire season. This included preparing advice for three State of Emergency declarations to facilitate emergency services to act quickly to protect people and property.

In receiving the public service medal, Boyd’s critical role during the pandemic was also recognised. Under her leadership, a team of professionals worked across government to draft 121 public health orders to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Boyd was instrumental in preparing more than 50 acts, regulations, exemptions, and planning instruments. As General Counsel, she also helped to provide key advice to the NSW Government on how to manage the pandemic and maintain public safety, while also managing the economy.

Brad Hazzard, the NSW Health Minister throughout the pandemic, describes Boyd as “one of the most outstanding lawyers I have ever worked with.” More than a year since his exit from politics, Hazzard remains grateful for Boyd’s advice during the hardest years of his ministerial career. “Her intellect, understanding of legal issues, common decency, and strong social justice bent commanded the respect of both sides of politics, and that is a rarity,” Hazzard tells the Journal.

The pandemic was a unique time in NSW history. Boyd says “It was incredibly challenging, the pace, also just the extraordinary nature of the event that we faced. I think the biggest issue in terms of navigating that legal landscape was really the role that general counsels played in maintaining the rule of law in that period”.

Extraordinary measures were taken. Public health orders and mandates were implemented, which restricted people’s movements beyond a 5-kilometre radius, prevented people from leaving their homes unless it fell within one of the permissible reasons, made it mandatory to wear face masks, set rules regarding isolation and issuance of fines for breach of orders.

“There is a tension between emergency situations and the rule of law. … those emergencies threaten the values that go to the rule of law … often for very good reasons,” she says.

“The usual checks and balances are not there for good reason. It was just a critical function of lawyers in government at that time to ensure that, as far as possible, the decisions of government had regard to the rule of law.”

“It was a challenging environment to do that in. … I still look back and think it was one of the most important things that we did.

“It’s telling to me that public trust in government peaked during that time, despite the draconian nature of the laws that were in place that restricted movement, that had a huge [impact] on rights and freedoms.”

Hazzard describes being General Counsel to Cabinet as “one of the toughest jobs in the public sector.”

“One minute you are a passive and astute observer [in a Cabinet meeting] and then next minute, you are being asked by the Premier to provide instant distillation of very complex issues,” he says, noting that such advice could often go against the existing beliefs of MPs.

“[But] Kate’s presence, and her quiet yet persuasive demeanour, guaranteed that every Cabinet Minister would listen when she spoke.”

Reflecting on the issue of trust during this period, Boyd says “I hope that part of that relates to … the emphasis on ensuring that while these laws were extraordinary, they were as far as possible, made clear to people, they were explained … to people daily … they were not enforced in an arbitrary way, as far as possible … there was a real emphasis on trying to ensure that those principles … our fundamentals of rule of law were observed as much as we could, so I think that was our … main contribution during that time.”

The pandemic provided an invaluable learning opportunity for those in the public service. The biggest takeaway was a move towards collaboration and away from “silo-ism” within government. Boyd intends to apply the lessons learnt from the pandemic in facing other challenges, including the housing crisis, the scourge of domestic violence, and violence against women.

“There has to be a whole of system approach because we just know that the problems are so complex. They are bigger than the portfolio of one minister. We need to work across government … to ensure that government is pulling all of the levers that it has available to it to drive outcomes.”

Battling imposter syndrome

With 17 years of experience in the public sector under her belt, and years practising as a solicitor before that, Boyd seems to have the perfect combination of expertise, passion, and dedication for the job. Although she admits, “I had the imposter syndrome that you’d imagine as the youngest, or one of the youngest Secretaries, in this role”.

Stepping into such a crucial position for government would not be possible without a dedicated support network and mentors to impart their valuable knowledge and experience. “I’ve got some great mentors in government, especially there are a lot of great female leaders in the sector including people like Susan Pearce (AM) who is the Secretary of Health,” says Boyd.

“She has given me some great advice. … Her favourite saying is ‘you don’t fall upwards’. It is common for women to think, when they are promoted, ‘why was this given to me, I’m not good enough’. Nope, ‘you don’t fall upwards’. If you are there, it’s for a reason. Which I always try to keep in my mind when I have those moments of doubt,” she says.

Although it takes a lot of effort to maintain a positive mindset, and there may be moments of self-doubt, Boyd says it’s important to recognise it and get yourself into the right mindset. “The impact that you can have is incredible,” she says.

Boyd acknowledges that there are many great women leaders in the sector and in the private sector. She credits Fiona Crosbie, the chair of Allens Linklaters, as being a huge, positive influence on her trajectory as well. Boyd describes Crosbie as an incredible mentor, adding she was “so generous with her knowledge, particularly to young women lawyers.”

And she says there are many other great female leaders on the Secretary’s board, with a wealth of knowledge and experience to tap into.

Honing her craft

To many people, the prospect of having to switch between a “lawyer” hat and a “policy” hat may be daunting but not to Boyd. “I find it funny when people say that … people said to me when I got this job ‘how are you going to switch off your lawyer’s brain?’ but why would I do that? No one would ever say that to a policy thinker,” she says.

“If you are a good lawyer, and a good government lawyer, you are constantly thinking about policy design, outcomes, and evidence-based decision making.”

Throughout her career, Boyd has been fortunate to work with a lot of great mentors and leaders. She observes that the best leaders she has worked with share two common characteristics: integrity and empathy. Good leaders have “clear vision for the organisation in terms of its values and purpose, and the ability to communicate that vision in a way that inspired and mobilised everyone in the organisation,” she says.

Boyd credits the former CEO of the Grattan Institute, Professor John Daley, as being a source of inspiration. She notes that when he completed his term as CEO in 2020, Daley shared the following words of wisdom: the mark of a leader “is not what is achieved while you are there, but how you set up the organisation to develop afterwards.”

These profound words stayed with Boyd, and helped inform her own leadership style and what she hopes to achieve as a leader. “That idea has really inspired me to focus not only on the immediate priorities of the government, but on the institutional legacy of The Cabinet Office as a steward of good public policy and integrity in government,” she says.

According to the Law Society of NSW’s Annual Report 2023, government solicitors make up 11.17 per cent of the State’s legal profession compared with 68.78 per cent in private practice. What is particularly interesting is that 34.20 per cent, of the state’s solicitors are younger than 35 and 22.22 per cent of solicitors have less than five years’ experience.

Boyd says “I’m a big advocate of people having a public service career and really honing that craft.”

Imparting her advice for the next generation of young lawyers, Boyd wants everyone to consider a role in government, as there are many opportunities. The sector is so diverse, she says, that “[O]nce you develop that toolkit and that understanding of the authorising environment, and how government decisions are made, you will be a benefit to any agency and there are so many different things that you can do. “If you want a diverse career, a challenging career, a career that makes a real difference to people’s lives… government is for you.”

With so many competing objectives and important tasks that demand her time, it is no surprise that Boyd wears multiple hats. By day, she is the Secretary of a government department whose responsibility is to provide policy advice and assist the government in decision-making processes.

Outside the workplace, she is a mother to three children who keep her hands full. It does not leave much time to enjoy hobbies but Boyd attempts to carve out space for those moments of calm.

“I love a good book. I love gardening, but I don’t get much time for that anymore. I love music and I play a little bit of piano. I try to fit in time for things like that,” she says.

However, she admits that with all the demands upon her, her time is like confetti at the moment, scattered across many different tasks. Still, her family and work are her main priorities, and she celebrates the strong network supporting her in what she does.

“My support network is so important to me, including my partner … who shares that mental load and understands the demands of my job, and has made a lot of sacrifices for our family so that I can do it,” she says. “I think it’s really incumbent on women to be honest about that and the sacrifice that it all takes, but at the same time, it’s hugely special and rewarding.”      

Photography: James Horan                                                                                       –