Previous Administrator - The Honourable Austin Asche AC QC

Term of Office - 1/3/93 - 16/2/97

Keith John Austin Asche was born in Melbourne on 28 November 1925, and spent his childhood in Darwin and Melbourne. He served with the RAAF for two years from 1944 to 1946, mostly in the Northern Territory and Northwest Australia and, after the war, practised as a barrister in Queensland and Melbourne. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1972.

In 1976, he became a Judge of the Family Court of Australia, and was Acting Chief Judge from 1985 to 1986. He was Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge in Victoria from 1984 to 1986 and holds the rank of Past Grand Master in the Victorian and South Australian Constitutions.

In 1986, he returned to Darwin as a Judge of the Supreme Court of the NT and in 1987 was appointed Chief Justice. In 1987, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature, by Deakin University. In 1992 he was made a Fellow of the Australian College of Education and in 1994 he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the Northern Territory University.

Mr Asche was appointed as the fifteenth Administrator of the Northern Territory on 1 March 1993, a position he held until 16 February 1997. In addition, he held appointments as Chief Scout in the Northern Territory, Honorary Colonel of the North West Mobile Force, and Deputy Prior in the Northern Territory of Order of St John. He was appointed a Knight of Grace of the order St John in 1993. On Australia Day 1994 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for service to the law, to tertiary education and to the community, particularly the people of the Northern Territory. The Governor-General invested him with the insignia of this appointment at Government House, Darwin on 17 June 1994.

Austin Asche married Valerie James in 1958 and they have one son and one daughter. Dr Valerie Asche was a senior research fellow at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin from 1986 to 1994.

His recreations include tennis, Australian poetry and literature generally.