Lawyer takes disability discrimination job

The federal government has appointed West Australian barrister Ben Gauntlett as the new disability discrimination commissioner.

A West Australian barrister will be the next disability discrimination commissioner.

Ben Gauntlett takes on the role for a five-year term after the government appointed Alastair McEwin to be on the panel for the disability royal commission.

"Mr Gauntlett has extensive legal experience as a barrister in Victoria and Western Australia and will bring a range of skills and experience to the role, including lived experience with disability," Attorney-General Christian Porter said on Friday.

"I am confident that Mr Gauntlett will do an outstanding job as disability discrimination commissioner, working collaboratively with government and the disability sector to remove discrimination and promote the rights of people with disability."

The lawyer broke his neck during a rugby match in Perth in 1995, leaving him a quadriplegic with limited movement in his arms, hands and upper body, he told the New York University Law magazine a decade ago.

Before becoming a barrister, he was a Rhodes scholar, an associate to former High Court justice Kenneth Hayne and a counsel assisting the commonwealth solicitor-general.

Mr Gauntlett starts in the job within the Human Rights Commission on May 7.

Commission president Rosalind Croucher will act in the role for the next month.