Many of the people with whom he attended Manly Warringah Special School, in northern Sydney – where he became the first student in the school’s history to complete the Higher School Certificate – have had their lives tragically cut short by health conditions.
“I’ve been very lucky in life – to have had the family I have had and to have had so many people who have seen me as a safe pair of hands or worth a risk,” says Adam, a solicitor and consumer advocate/advisor for people living with disability.
Although securing full-time paid work has, at times, proven challenging, the UNE Master of Laws alumnus has carved out a meaningful and rewarding career contributing his lived and living experience to numerous committees and boards and reviews, often voluntarily. And his legal expertise has been extremely useful.
As a Senate intern during his studies, Adam was a delegate to both the 1998 Constitutional Convention on a Republic and the 2001 Corowa People’s Conference. He has also reviewed health policy for a number of agencies, including Health Consumers NSW and the Clinical Excellence Commission, in pursuit of improvements to Australia’s disability services and public health system. And in 2023 he joined the Northern Sydney Local Health District Board.
“Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is the one chance we get, so it’s important to me to be involved. Fate has a way of putting us in the right place at the right time.”
Adam’s contributions were recognised in early 2025, when he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service to community health, the law and people with disability.
And his mantra? “Libertas inaestimabilis res est: Liberty is a thing beyond all price.”
“I’ve lived my life around people who are far worse off than I will ever be. I’ve still got one-and-a-half hands, a heart and a head that works and it has always been my aim to help people living with disability or a chronic illness to lead decent lives and to access the best medicine.
“I know the pain and suffering they and their families deal with. I’ve lived it.”
A personal interest in the potential of stem cell regeneration to reverse permanent disability, inspired by the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve, led Adam to undertake his Masters thesis in how common law views the human body and the patenting of human tissues. He then attempted a PhD at Macquarie University, investigating the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which, he says “assumes lifelong disability” and fails to fund or support science and technology that may help to find cures.
“I am dependent on the NDIS but the $50 billion it costs annually could have funded so many researchers who could have advanced so much science to treat many conditions, as we’ve seen with breast cancer and HIV and brain cancer. That’s something that gets me wound up. Diversity and inclusion doesn’t come anywhere near a cure.”
As for his enduring legacy, Adam hopes it will be health policy that employs genetic and other tools we already possess to prevent future illness and disability.
“You can’t be afraid to be the first; it just might work,” he says. “A friend once told me to find something that makes you cry, and when you find that you will have found your passion in life. I think it’s a good question to ask ourselves – whether it’s the Amazon Basin or Tasmania’s old-growth forests or whales or seahorses. You have to find something that really matters to you and do it.
“But I want to stress that anything I have done, I have not done alone. It’s because of the 101 people supporting me, and one of the most important, of course, is my Mum Sally. She’s been through the good, the bad and the ugly – and there’s been plenty of that – with me over the past 52 years.”
