Annual oration to focus on human rights in Australia

Victoria University is proud to announce that Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM will present the 2021 Annual Michael Kirby Justice Oration.

She will speak on the topic “Bringing Rights Home – mapping an agenda on promoting, protecting and fulfilling human rights in Australia”.

This year, because of the COVID-19 restrictions, the Oration will take place online.

Professor Croucher, leading academic and President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, is one of the most inspirational women in Australia.

Before joining the Commission, Professor Croucher was President of the Australian Law Reform Commission and led several significant law reform inquiries.

From December 1999 to February 2007, Professor Croucher was Dean of Macquarie Law School. She gained her PhD in legal history at the UNSW and was recognised as one of the 40 “inspirational alumni” of the university. Two years later, in 2013, Professor Croucher was made an Honorary Life Member of the Women Lawyers’ Association of New South Wales.

Her contributions to public policy saw her named as one of Australia’s “100 Women of Influence” in the Australian Financial Review and Westpac awards. In the same year, her “outstanding contribution to the legal profession” was recognised by the Australian Women Lawyers award.

In 2015, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for “significant service to the law as an academic, to legal reform and education, to professional development, and to the arts". In 2018, UNSW conferred on her an honorary LLD, and in 2021 she was similarly honoured by Macquarie University.

Music has always played a large role in Professor Croucher’s life and she sings, plays oboe and recorder, and has written the lyrics for three choral works. In her university days, she performed in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney and then spent seven years with the Renaissance Players. In 2018, she was appointed as Patron of The Lawyers Orchestra Inc.

In a biographical article for an Australian women lawyers website, she said “my dream job in my teenage imaginings was to become Speaker of the House”.

The oration will take place via Zoom Webinar on Wednesday 25 August from 5.30pm to 6.30pm.