Lawyer and academic Rosalind Croucher has been named as Australia’s new Human Rights Commission president, replacing the outgoing Gillian Triggs.

The attorney general, George Brandis, announced Croucher’s appointment on Tuesday, and said she would begin her seven-year term on 30 July.

Croucher is the Australian Law Reform commissioner, and under her watch the organisation called for further consideration of reforms to the 18C provisions in the Racial Discrimination Act, which it said may be too broad.

Brandis praised Croucher on Tuesday for her “pragmatic, constructive and analytical approach to law reform”.



“Prof Croucher has had an illustrious career as a lawyer and member of the academy,” Brandis said.

“Her strong leadership of the ALRC, and expertise in complex areas of the law, has enhanced its respected public image,” he said.

She was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2015. The honour was given for Croucher’s “significant service to the law as an academic, to legal reform and education, to professional development, and to the arts”.



She was also given the Australian Women Lawyer’s award for her work to support and advance women in the legal profession.

Croucher said on Tuesday she was honoured to accept the position, but said her immediate focus was on her remaining law reform work.

“I look forward to joining the Australian Human Rights Commission at the end of July,” Croucher said in a statement.

“In the meantime, my focus is on the Australian Law Reform Commission, which is working towards a consultation paper for its important inquiry into the incarceration rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”

Croucher is widely considered a strong advocate for freedom of speech. She led the ALRC’s two-year freedoms inquiry, which assessed the compatibility of commonwealth legislation with traditional rights.

The final report, published last year, was equivocal on the issue of 18C and freedom of speech, but called for a more thorough review.



“The ALRC has not established whether s 18C of the RDA has, in practice, caused unjustifiable interferences with freedom of speech,” the report said.

“Part IIA of the [racial discrimination act], of which s 18C forms a part, would benefit from more thorough review in relation to freedom of speech. However, any such review should take place in conjunction with consideration of anti-vilification laws more generally.”

Croucher has also overseen inquiries into copyright, privacy, native title, client legal privilege, secrecy laws, family violence, age barriers, and disability laws.

Triggs departs the commission after coming under sustained attack from elements of the Coalition and News Corp.

She was accused of mishandling an 18C case involving students at the Queensland University of Technology.



Triggs told Fairfax Media she believed her decision to inquire into children in immigration detention put her offside with the Coalition in March 2012.

“Within a few months of that it was full on and it’s been full on, pretty much ever since,” she said.

The shadow attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, said on Tuesday that Triggs had been subjected to a “endless stream of unfair and unjust criticism”. He said Triggs had withstood the criticism with grace and fortitude.

“Her advocacy on behalf of minorities in Australia, and her fearlessness in holding governments of both sides to account, will be her important legacy,” Dreyfus said.



“Labor hopes that Professor Croucher will not be made to face the same ideological warfare her predecessor had to deal with.”

But the attacks on Croucher have already begun. The conservative Institute of Public Affairs has already labelled her “Triggs-lite”.



The institute’s Morgan Begg said Croucher’s appointment constituted a “failure to defend fundamental human rights in Australia”.

“Under Croucher, the erosion of our freedoms by the Australian Human Rights Commission will likely continue,” Begg said.

Croucher was the dean of law at Macquarie University before joining the ALRC. She was previously the dean of law and deputy chair of the academic board at the University of Sydney.

