APC Update | Issue 46
APC UPDATE
 |
| MEDIA RELEASE | 8 December 2014 |
| Appointment of next Chair |
| As previously announced, the Chair of the Council, Prof Julian Disney AO, will step down on 28 February next year after more than five years in the position. The Council has appointed Professor David Weisbrot AM as Chair from 1 March 2015. |
| Prof Weisbrot is an Emeritus Professor of Law and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney. He is currently a part-time Commissioner of the NSW Law Reform Commission; Vice-President of the Australian Academy of Law; a Member of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Garvan Institute’s Centre for Clinical Genomics; and a Director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. |
| David Weisbrot was President of the Australian Law Reform Commission from 1999-2009 and led inquiries into such issues as the handling of classified and security-sensitive information; sedition laws; secrecy laws; privacy law and practice; the protection of human genetic information; Royal Commissions of Inquiry; and pro bono legal services. He was previously Dean of Law and then Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, responsible for the faculties of Business, Arts, Law, Education, Fine Arts and the Conservatorium of Music. |
| Prof Weisbrot grew up in the United States and moved to Australia in 1979, after four years in the Pacific Islands, to take up a law lectureship at the University of New South Wales. He has published ten books and well over 200 official reports, book chapters, journal articles and conference papers. He has also been a member of the law schools at Macquarie University and the University of Papua New Guinea; and a legal and policy consultant to governments, institutions and businesses. |
| David Weisbrot was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2006 for "service to the law in the areas of law reform, education and access to legal services, and through contributions to research, analysis and policy development on a range of matters of public interest". In 2010, he received the National Health and Medical Research Council's award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Research. |
| Prof Weisbrot will be available for interviews shortly before he takes office next March. |
| Other Press Council news |
| Two more publishers join the Press Council |
| The publishers of the digital-only publications The New Daily and New Matilda have joined the Council. By doing so they agree to contribute to its funding, comply with its Standards of Practice, and cooperate with its processes for handling complaints and publishing adjudications. The number of digital-only publishers in the Council has now grown from one to seven during the last three years. |
| New member of the Council's governing body |
| Anna Reynolds has been appointed as an independent journalist member of the Council's governing body. She worked for News Corp in Brisbane from 2000 to 2011 as a journalist and managing editor. Before that she worked for twelve years a reporter and presenter with ABC radio and television in Brisbane. She has also served as media adviser to an Attorney General and to a Special Prosecutor. She has been appointed to serve for three years from 1 December 2014. |
| Contact for media: Michael Rose, Director of Research and Communications (michaelrose@presscouncil.org.au) |
| Australian Press Council Address: Level 6, 309 Kent St, Sydney, 2000 Phone: (02) 9261 1930 or 1800 025 712 Fax: (02) 9267 6826 Email: info@presscouncil.org.au Web: http://www.presscouncil.org.au |
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