Professor Emeritus Sir Gustav Nossal AC CBE
Sir Gustav, Anex Chief Patron, is one of Australia’s most prominent scientists and Australian of the Year 2000.
Gustav Nossal was born in Austria in 1931 and came to Australia in 1939. In 1965 he was appointed Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, a position he held from 1965 to 1996.
Sir Gustav is currently a consultant for the World Health organisation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is also Chairman of the Global Foundation Advisory Committee. He was Deputy Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation from 1998 to 2000. He was knighted in 1977, made a Companion in the Order of Australia in 1989 and appointed Australian of the Year 2000.
Professor Emeritus David Penington AC
Professor David Penington was an undergraduate of the University of Melbourne and of Oxford University where he graduated in Medicine in 1955. He was a medical specialist, teacher and researcher in London and returned to Melbourne in 1968. He was Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne from 1970 to 1987, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine for eight years from 1978 and Vice-Chancellor (President) of the University for eight years from 1988.
Professor Penington was Chairman of the National AIDS Task Force from 1983 to 1987, leading public health strategies for AIDS. From 1994 to 2001 he was President of Museum Victoria. He chaired the Victorian Premier’s Drug Advisory Council in 1995-96, chaired a Committee on Drugs for Capital City Lord Mayors from 1997 to1999 and the Drug Policy Expert Committee of the Victorian Government in 1999-2000.
Professor Penington was Chairman of the Board of Cochlear Ltd from 1995 to 2002, the international leader in cochlear implants. He chaired Neurosciences Victoria Ltd from 2002 – 2005. He has been Chairman of Bio21 Australia Ltd since 2002 and of the Board of the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne since January 2005.
Professor Margaret Hamilton AO
Professor Margaret Hamilton is an Executive Member of the Australian National Council on Drugs and has more than 30 years experience in the drug and alcohol field. She has a background in social work and public health, and has conducted research in a broad range of areas including epidemiology and policy. She was the founding Director of Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre in Victoria. She is the Chair of the Cancer Council of Victoria Board and recently chaired the Multiple and Complex Needs Panel. Professor Hamilton is also a member of the Prime Minister’s Council of Homelessness.
The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG
Michael Kirby was, until 2 February 2009, one of the seven Justices of Australia’s highest constitutional and appellate court, the High Court of Australia. He served there from his appointment on 6 February 1996. At the end of that service he was Australia’s longest serving judicial officer having been:
- A deputy president of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission 1975-1983;
- Inaugural chairman of the Australian Law Reform Commission 1975-1984;
- A judge of the Federal Court of Australia 1983-1984;
- President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal 1984-1996;
- President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands 1995-1996;
- A justice of the High Court of Australia 1996-2009.
Since his judicial retirement, Michael Kirby was elected President of the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators Australia from 2009-2010. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Laws of Australia. In 2010, he was awarded the Gruber Justice Prize. He is also presently a member of the Eminent Persons Group which is investigating the future of the Commonwealth of Nations; and has been appointed to the UNDP Global Commission of HIV and the Law. In 2010, he was appointed to the Australian Panel of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (World Bank).