Born at the Right Time

by Ron McCallum

  After my speech, I sat next to a young man from El Salvador and he told me his story. The United States Government had sold mines to the El Salvadorian Government and these mines had been stolen by the guerrilla forces. In their turn, the guerrillas planted the mines on roads and paths used by civilians as a form of intimidation. When he was only seventeen, the young man trod on one of these mines and lost both his legs high above his knees. Through determination and courage, he had become a Paralympic athlete, had married and was employed. In my view, all land mines, anti-personnel devices and armed drones should be outlawed under international and domestic laws.

  My lifelong interest in labour law continued, and in 2010 I was invited to Washington to give a comparative paper on Australian and American labour law as part of the event marking seventy-five years since the United States Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, which established an American-wide regime of collective bargaining. I was the only Australian to attend. My position as a member, and then as Chairperson, of the UN’s CRPD Committee also led to me receiving many invitations to speak in different countries. In May 2011, I travelled to Iceland to give a paper at the conference of the Nordic Network on Disability Research.

  Safak’s determination to make UN buildings accessible brought results. For our fifth session in April 2011, the CRPD Committee was able to move into the ground floor conference room at Palais Wilson. We now held our sessions in the same building as all the other UN human rights committees. There was a lift, an accessible toilet and room for people to pass one another with ease. We blind used our computer-based technologies, and we also had sign-language interpreters and captioning at all of our sessions. When I was Chairperson, our captioners were based in Chicago. We sent them the audio feed for both English and Spanish, and within several seconds our words popped up on the screen. When we began each day at 10 a.m., it was only 5 a.m. in Chicago; but the captioners did a super job.

  Several months after the conclusion of the fifth session, Safak resigned her Secretaryship. She had been elected as a member of the Turkish parliament, which is called the Grand National Assembly. She is a member of the Republican People’s Party, which is the main opposition party. In 2012 Safak was elected as a member of the CRPD Committee and served a full term until 31 December 2016. In 2012, she also received the International Women of Courage Award from the State Department of the United States, which was presented to her by Hillary Clinton.

  The questioning of government delegations by persons with disabilities has been a powerful force in changing attitudes towards us. For many government ministers and diplomats, this was the first occasion on which they were publicly questioned by articulate persons with disabilities. After all, we are rights holders under the CRPD as we are living with disabilities. This gave a freshness and intensity to the questioning, which kept everyone on their toes.

  One lunchtime as I was leaving the conference room in Palais Wilson during a constructive dialogue, one diplomat commented to me that the members were asking very good questions. I answered that of course we asked good questions: some of us were professors of law and of sociology and we had lived experience of disability. What’s more, we prepared for such constructive dialogue for several months.

  The same issues were coming up over and over again, no matter whether the country we were inquiring into was developed or developing. Violence against women and girls with disabilities, including sexual violence, occurs in most countries, more especially when persons with disabilities are institutionalised. In many nations, the legal capacity of persons with cognitive and/or psychosocial disabilities is still not fully respected. Access to inclusive education for girls and boys with disabilities is still far from universal in our world. I recall that at least four million blind girls and boys are not receiving any formal education whatsoever.

  Finally, most persons with disabilities, especially in developing countries, still live in poverty. In large part this is because of the lack of access to employment for us persons with disabilities. Even in Australia, the labour force participation rate for us persons with disabilities is about 52 per cent, whereas the labour force participation rate for the workforce at large is approximately 82 per cent.

  During my time with the UN, the World Health Organization combined with the World Bank to compile an extensive report on persons with disabilities throughout the world. To my surprise, I was invited by these bodies to go to the United Nations in New York in July 2011 to be one of the launchers of the joint ‘World Report on Disability’. To my knowledge, this was the first time a report had gathered stories and statistics from all continents. Its headline statement was that approximately 15 per cent of people in our world—that is, one billion people—are persons with disabilities. It is a truly extraordinary document, indicating that most of the world’s persons with disabilities live in poverty and often lack even basic education.

  Advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities isn’t always going to be done politely. In August 2011 Mary and I attended a conference in Seoul to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Korean Human Rights Commission. The relationship between the South Korean disability community and its government was then a rather uneasy one. Several disability leaders had warned us that, during one of the mornings of the celebratory seminar, there would be a demonstration against the Human Rights Commission. Right on cue, a group of disabled people started to chant and interrupt proceedings. Security guards began to evict them, so several threw themselves out of their wheelchairs and had to be carried out.

  Some very powerful countries took part in constructive dialogue with our UN Committee, including the People’s Republic of China in October 2012. I found the Chinese delegation, and especially its head, to be truly superb. They were professionals to their fingertips and they answered all questions in detail. While much still had to be done to assist persons with disabilities in China, and this is true for all nations, their government was making significant efforts to better the lives of our Chinese sisters and brothers with disabilities.

  In October 2012, on a further trip to the United Nations in New York, I appeared before the General Assembly to report on the work and needs of the CRPD Committee. Essentially, I was pleading for more meeting time, because we already had a backlog of thirty-one initial reports.

  ‘In just over four and a half years, one hundred and twenty-five countries including the European Union have ratified the Convention. I think that this is the fastest level of ratification of any United Nations Convention,’ I told the General Assembly. ‘I think it has been ratified speedily because the Convention itself shows a need to respect the rights of us persons with disabilities. According to the World Health Organization report on disability, fifteen per cent of the world’s population will experience disability in their lifetimes. In other words, there are almost one billion of we persons with disabilities sharing our world with you. Most live in developing countries and most, sad to say, live in poverty. This Convention has been a clarion call to nations, to provinces, to regions and to we persons with disabilities to uphold our social, political and economic rights.’

  Later I learned that I was incorrect in saying that the CRPD was the fastest ratified convention. Actually it was only the second fastest: the speediest ratification was to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

  On Wednesday, 24 October, together with several other monitoring committee Chairpersons, I was invited to meet with Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He was courteous and softly spoken; but in his voice I could hear that all the cares of our world were weighing heavily upon him.

  16

  Later on

  Aside from my work with the United Nations, there was plenty happening in my life in Australia. In early 2009 the Law School made our historic move from near the law courts on Phillip Street to the new Eastern Avenue building on the campus of Sydney University.

  My successor Dean Gillian Triggs gave me a large office on the
top level of the main building. After setting up my computer and unpacking so many books, my immediate task was to learn my way around the academic quarters and also the triangular teaching section in the new building. I adopted the mobility tactic I always use, which was simply to take one step at a time. Which lecture theatres and seminar rooms would I need to get to for my classes? Then, how to walk from the building down to the bus stop on Parramatta Road? Pretty soon I was relaxed about getting to places in the new Law School and its surroundings.

  It was Mary’s fiftieth birthday in 2009. We celebrated on an unbelievably hot summer afternoon, the temperature reaching forty-seven degrees Celsius in our back garden. Kate and several of her girlfriends sang a beautiful selection of songs. Riz, our refugee friend from Afghanistan, who is also a special member of our family, attended with his wife, Safia, and their young daughter. Mary’s mum, plus her sisters and brothers and their spouses, were there as well as many of our dear friends.

  The Nineteenth World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law took place in Sydney in September 2009. We had fewer overseas visitors than we expected, in part owing to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. There had also been a series of strikes at some French universities, and so we had fewer French colleagues in attendance.

  There were enough Spanish-speaking colleagues to warrant simultaneous translation of English into Spanish and Spanish into English. Given that we didn’t have many French-speaking colleagues, and also that most of them spoke English, we forewent French translation. Language is a rather ticklish issue, and so my colleagues and I had to apologise to our French-speaking friends for not having French as one of our languages.

  As President, the lot fell to me to give the opening address. As Mary is bilingual, she helped me put it into French, and I brailled it all out. I began by reading the first paragraph in English, then reading that same paragraph in French, then reading the second paragraph in French, and then in English and so on. Of course my French accent is somewhat Anglophone, and Mary recalls it as excruciating to watch and listen to me reading it out in French. However, I received huge applause and I think that our French colleagues did appreciate my efforts.

  The Work Choices laws were finally swept off the statute book with the passage of the Fair Work Act 2009. The new federal laws gave unfair-dismissal rights back to those who worked for small businesses, in other words those who worked for employers who employed fewer than 100 employees. Enterprise bargaining was placed at the centre of the laws and was backed up by a legislative and award-based safety net of terms and conditions of employment.

  Nonetheless, the rate of collective bargaining continued to drop and there was wage stagnation. The union movement had been fragmented and was in retreat. Unions had so many laws surrounding them that they couldn’t do anything, a situation that continues to exist.

  I think this is terrible. It is still the situation that if a union wants to bargain for a group of workers, and some of that group are union members and some are not, it can’t ask the non-members for a fee to contribute to their costs involved in the bargaining. The collective agreement itself can’t contain any differentiation between union and non-union members, so why should non-union members join? You can’t even have what are called pro-union clauses, so I think it is a real problem.

  In early 2008 I, along with two senior academics and a researcher, began research into the effectiveness of Australian health and safety laws in protecting employees and contractors from unsafe working conditions and workplace accidents. Workplace health and safety law has always been one of my abiding labour law interests. After all, most employees bring their body and their mind to their place of work, and our laws should ensure as practically as possible that employees can return to their home and their loved ones with their mind and body intact. Our research coincided with a push by the Australian federal government and state and territory governments to harmonise Australian workplace safety laws. This harmonisation process led to the enactment of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 by the federal parliament and by a majority of state and territory parliaments.

  In late 2011 I was asked to be part of a panel to review the Fair Work Act 2009 and the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008. By mid-2012 we concluded that, by and large, the Fair Work Act machinery was working well, but that it could be improved. Members of the conservative press were rather critical of our report. They claimed we did not assist Australia because we did not recommend a radical, root-and-branch re-organisation of our labour laws.

  Regardless, in its 2013 election platform the Abbott-led Coalition accepted many of our proposed changes. But, having won the election, the Abbott government requested the Productivity Commission to make yet another review of our labour laws. In its report, the Productivity Commission mirrored the general conclusions of the review panel I had been involved with. I must say that I felt vindicated.

  In November 2010, I received an email informing me that I had been selected as one of the finalists for the award of Senior Australian for New South Wales for 2011. To qualify to be Senior Australian, you have to be over sixty years of age and to be continuing with useful work. Well, I had just turned sixty-two, so I felt a rather youngish senior.

  The New South Wales presentations were to be made on the evening of 25 November 2010. I assumed that I would not be the winner and so I didn’t prepare an acceptance speech. Actually, I raced to the venue from a seminar on persons with disabilities and was a little out of breath. Mary also arrived by car and she made it just before the commencement of proceedings.

  I was taken by surprise when I was announced the Senior Australian for New South Wales. I walked onto the stage to be presented with the award from Kristina Keneally, who was the Premier of New South Wales at the time. This was a special thrill for me because her husband, Ben Keneally, had been one of my very best students. When Ben returned from studying in the United States in the mid-1990s, he had invited me to lunch to meet his then girlfriend, Kristina. She was young and vivacious; but it didn’t occur to me then that she would be the first female premier of our state.

  On the afternoon of Monday, 6 December 2010, I received a phone call from Adam Gilchrist, the former Australian wicket-keeper who was then the Chair of the Australia Day Council. Adam told me that I would receive the Senior Australian of the Year Award, but that I had to keep it a secret. The news truly left me speechless, but caused great excitement in my immediate family.

  My surrogate mum, Lois, Mary, Kate and Gerard were there with me on the big day. The presentation ceremony took place on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra and was shown live on television. Jessica Watson, who had sailed solo around the world, was Young Australian; Don Ritchie, a suicide-prevention advocate, was named Local Hero; and the innovative social entrepreneur Simon McKeon was our Australian of the Year.

  When my name was announced, Mary took me onto centre stage, where Prime Minister Julia Gillard presented me with the award. The Prime Minister had been a professional labour lawyer for more than twenty years and so we knew one another. Julia kissed me several times before I gave a brief speech. It was special to be kissed so warmly by the Prime Minister!

  Our band of Australians of the Year then flew to Sydney for the Australia Day fireworks and celebrations at Sydney Harbour. We were placed on a boat and taken to a floating dock, from which we were introduced to the crowd. Jessica had sailed around the world solo, Don had been in the navy and Simon was an experienced competitive sailor. I knew nothing about the sea and almost lost my footing as the floating dock rose and fell with the waves. As the dock lifted, Premier Keneally called out to Mary, ‘Grab hold of Ron!’ and Mary’s arm saved the day.

  My award was, I believe, an impetus for Mary to start painting again. She is a superb portrait painter; but ever since our marriage she had been busy with children, work and with book writing. She decided to paint my portrait.

  Mary has explained t
o me that when she occasionally gets up at dawn, I am often to be found in the study wearing my earphones, listening to my email correspondence being read out in synthetic speech. I don’t bother to turn on the light, but Mary has told me that the light from the computer screen illuminates me.

  To state the obvious, I have never seen my portrait. Mary has not only described it to me but also explained one or two aspects she had to invent. ‘Darling, I had to alter things just a little because often on hot mornings you’re only wearing underpants,’ she once commented. ‘Be thankful that I’ve put clothes on you.’

  Around the edges of the painting Mary brailled out Article 1 of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and described me in braille as a mediator and a meditator. It is one of my most cherished possessions and hangs in my study.

  Mary’s portrait of me was entered into the Portia Geach Memorial Award competition, which is for female painters. Our son Gerard attended the opening of the exhibition. As he stood near my portrait he heard a woman say, ‘You know, the artist is blind.’ Gerard informed her that the artist can see, but the guy in the painting is blind.

  The most memorable event of my tenure as Senior Australian for 2011 was meeting Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at a gathering in the Hall of the Australian Parliament in October. Everyone wanted to meet the royal couple and there was quite a crush. However, Prime Minister Julia Gillard took time out to introduce Mary and me to the Queen. We were able to say hello to Her Majesty, but of course our exchange only lasted for a few seconds.

  We also met the Duke, and this meeting was a little more relaxed. At first I found his accent a little hard to understand, and then I was struck by his posture. When shaking hands, I learn much about a person’s carriage. The Duke was ramrod straight, even at age ninety. He presumably had shrunk somewhat, but his military bearing was ever-present. I would have liked a longer chat with him, as I sensed that he was quite a raconteur.