First Indigenous judge appointed to Australian supreme court

Barrister Lincoln Crowley QC will become the first Indigenous judge to preside over an Australian superior court after he was appointed to the supreme court of Queensland.

Colleagues said Crowley, a well-regarded barrister and former crown prosecutor who was made Queen's Counsel in 2018, had broken a significant barrier for First Nations people.

It has taken a long time for Indigenous people to be appointed to any superior court in Australia, and it is very significant that Lincoln Crowley is the first such appointment, according to Tony McAvoy, who became the first Indigenous Australian senior counsel in 2015.

There is a matter of significant shame and embarrassment for the legal professional in Australia that there are not more First Nations judicial officers through all levels of the court.

I have watched Lincoln rise through his career and he always struck me as a very compassionate person and a great lawyer, and it comes as no surprise to me that the attorney-general of Queensland has appointed him to this position. Crowley, a Warramunga man, grew up in Charters Towers near Townsville and studied law at James Cook University. He told the Townsville Bulletin in 2018 that he was expelled from a private school in year 11 after a run-in with a teacher.

The deputy principal came into the office one day and said to me: Your family is Aboriginal aren't they? They are the type that end up in jail he said.

He was picking on me and trying to put me down, basically saying I had no prospects in the future and that was where I was going to end up.

Crowley said that he didn't know anyone who had been to the university, I didn't know anything about law nor have any connection to it. After graduating, Crowley worked as a solicitor-advocate for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service. He was called to the bar in 2003 and has worked in Sydney and Brisbane.

Crowley has acted in a number of high-profile cases, including the crown prosecutor of Oliver Curtis and Omar Succarieh, an Islamic bookshop owner who was convicted of foreign incursion charges. He was senior counsel for the disability royal commission.

The Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Crowley was historic and hopefully the beginning of many more to come. State attorney-general Shannon Fentiman said it was a historic day. The importance of ensuring that our judicial officers represent the diversity of our community can't be understated.

This appointment is significant for the justice system in Queensland, not only for First Nations Queenslanders.