News
Acting chairman appointed to NSW Disability Council
The Minister for Disability Services, Peter Primrose, has announced that Professor Ron McCallum AM has been appointed as interim Chair of the NSW Disability Council.
Professor McCallum has actively supported the work of Accessible Arts in recent years including launching the accessible cinema strand of the Sydney Film Festival in 2009. He also currently serves as the Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and was one of 12 people elected to its inaugural Committee of Experts.
Professor McCallum is also a prominent labour law academic who has written extensively on labour law matters and was the first totally blind person to have been appointed to a full professorship in any field at any university in Australia or New Zealand.
Mr Primrose said Professor McCallum would hold the position until 31 October, during which time nominations for this and other positions would be called.
“Professor McCallum is eminently qualified to act as chair of the Disability Council,” Mr Primrose said.
“Before becoming the foundation Blake Dawson Waldron Professor in Industrial Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney in 1993, Professor McCallum taught at York University in Ontario, at Duke University in North Carolina and at Monash University.
He now teaches Administrative Law, Public Law and Labour Law at the University of Sydney at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels."
Mr Primrose said that Professor McCallum’s other achievements included being elected the inaugural president of the Australian Labour Law Association; hosting the XIX World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law in Sydney in 2009; serving as the Asian regional Vice-President of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law; and as a member of the Board of Vision Australia since 2006.
Mr Primrose said that the position of Chair and the other Disability Council vacancies would be advertised shortly as the terms of all current Disability Council members would expire on October 31, 2010, or October 21, 2011.
Source: Media release, Office of Peter Primrose MLC | Minister for Disability Services | Minister for Ageing | Minister for Youth | Minister for Volunteering