Emeritus Professor Terry Carney AO honoured with CALD Lifetime Achievement Award
Author ADM+S Centre
Date 28 September 2026
Associate Investigator Emeritus Professor Terry Carney AO, from ADM+S at the University of Sydney has been awarded a 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD), recognising more than five decades of contribution to legal scholarship, legal education and law reform in Australia.
The CALD Lifetime Achievement Award is a prestigious award that honours individuals with a career spanning 25+ years who have made a significant and sustained contribution to legal education and/or research.
Professor Carney’s work with ADM+S focuses on the legal and social implications of automated decision-making in social security administration and tribunal review, the administration of the NDIS, and automated debt recovery.
His scholarship on social security law and administrative decision-making played a significant role in exposing the illegality of the Robodebt scheme. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme cited his research and publications 118 times in its findings.
A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Professor Carney has written extensively on social security, administrative, disability, health and mental health law. He served for nearly 40 years as a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and its predecessor, the Social Security Appeals Tribunal.
His body of work spans nearly a dozen books, more than 40 book chapters, 50 reports and more than 250 refereed journal publications. His research includes work on disability rights and supported decision-making, including the 2023 monograph Diversity, Dignity, Equity and Best Practice: A Framework for Supported Decision-Making, prepared for the Disability Royal Commission.
Professor Carney has also made significant contributions to Australian law reform, chairing inquiries into child welfare, adult guardianship and health law, as well as serving as Chair of the Australian Institute of Family Studies and leading the National Advisory Council on Social Welfare.
His international contributions include serving as President of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health and as the longstanding Australian Reporter to the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, contributing to international debates on mental health law, guardianship, disability rights and supported decision-making.
The CALD Lifetime Achievement Award was presented at the Australasian Law Academics Association Conference Gala Dinner in Melbourne.
