Charles Waterstreet

In October 2017, Waterstreet was accused of sexually harassing law student Tina Ni Huang during a job interview in August 2017. He has since denied these accusations.

Newcastle artist Nigel Milsom won his first Archibald Prize in 2015 for his portrait of Charles Waterstreet, the artist's former defence lawyer.

He began a theatrical career in producing the hit Boys Own McBeth with Grahame Bond (Aunty Jack) from 1979 which ran for nearly three years; it played in Los Angeles with an all-Australian cast. In film he co-produced The Marsupials – The Howling III with director Philippe Mora. In 1990 he produced the highly respected Blood Oath which starred Bryan Brown, Russell Crowe and Deborah Kara Unger. The film was successfully released in Japanese theatres in April 1991 and in the United States in June of that year. It was shown at the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention on 12 August 1999 in Moscow to highlight aspects of international humanitarian law.

He is the author of Precious Bodily Fluids: A Larrikin's Memoir (Hodder Headline Australia and UK, 1998), which was re-issued by Hachette in 2008 as an Australian classic, and its sequel, Repeating the Leaving (Hodder Headline Australia, 2001). He is currently writing his third autobiography, Rake Man.

Waterstreet has been a member of the Aspen FilmFest Advisory Committee since 1993. In 1996, he produced Next to Nothing with TCN9 and Mushroom Pictures.

Waterstreet is a theatre and film producer. In 1986, he produced Howling III and in 1990 he produced Blood Oath. Along with Richard Roxburgh and Peter Duncan, he is a co-creator of the ABC TV series Rake.

Waterstreet has appeared in many criminal and civil cases in all courts in New South Wales and in the High Court of Australia. His first major trial came in 1978 when he left academia to appear as junior counsel to Edward St John QC and Marcus Einfeld in R v Barton. He successfully defended Thomas and Alexander Barton, two company directors charged with a series of alleged offences in which Barton company shareholders lost millions of dollars. He then appeared as counsel in the infamous Greek social security fraud case, and a number of murder and other serious criminal trials.

Waterstreet began his career teaching public law at the University of New South Wales from 1974 to 1978. In 1974, he was admitted to the bar and practised part-time, defending people charged with protest and homosexuality offences. He practised as a barrister, mainly in criminal law, at Forbes Chambers in Sydney until July 2016.

Born in Albury, New South Wales, to publican parents, Waterstreet was educated at Waverley College and the University of Sydney where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English, History and Political Science in 1971, and a Bachelor of Laws in 1974. During his time at university, he resided at St John's College and later at St Andrew's College.

Charles Christian Waterstreet (born 17 July 1950) is an Australian former barrister, author, and theatre and film producer. He has written two memoirs and produced two films, and he is now a columnist for The Sydney Morning Heraldafter the NSW Law Society declined to renew his practising certificate. He is known as one of the co-creators of the ABC Television series Rake. However, co-creator and actor Richard Roxburgh asserted in 2017 that Waterstreet had only contributed one idea to a single episode.