| James Muecke | |
| Birth Name: | James Sunter Muecke |
| Birth Place: | Adelaide, South Australia |
| Nationality: | Australian |
| Education: | University of Adelaide |
| Specialism: | Ophthalmologist |
James Sunter Muecke (born 1963) is an Australian ophthalmologist working in Adelaide, South Australia. He was the 2020 Australian of the Year, having been South Australian of the Year.[1] He was sworn in as South Australia's new Lieutenant Governor on 27 January 2022, succeeding Brenda Wilson.[2]
Muecke was born in Adelaide and raised in Canberra.[3] [4] He lived in Washington, D.C., as a child while his father worked for the Australian embassy. He attended Canberra Grammar School from 1976 to 1981.[5] After failing to get into medicine at the University of Sydney by one mark, Muecke returned to Adelaide to study medicine at the University of Adelaide,[6] graduating in 1987.[7] He later trained as an ophthalmologist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and subspecialty training in eye cancer in London[7]
Muecke began his career working in Kenya for 12 months. After his ophthalmology training, he worked for a year at Saint John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem, including taking "outreach eye clinics" into refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[3] [7] [8] He returned to South Australia and became an eye surgeon, working in private practice and as a visiting consultant at the Royal Adelaide and Women's and Children's Hospitals.[7]
In 2000, Muecke founded Vision Myanmar at the South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology. In 2008, this evolved into Sight For All, a social impact organisation dedicated to fighting the causes of blindness with projects in Aboriginal and mainstream Australian communities,[9] as well as training and equipping eye surgeons throughout Africa and Asia.[10] Muecke is Chair and co-founder of Sight for All.[7] Working with AusAID funding and the co-operation of both country's governments, Muecke created a program to create more than 30 specialist eye centres in Myanmar to treat cataract blindness.[8]
In the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours, Muecke was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).[11] He received the University of Adelaide's Vice-Chancellor's Alumni Award in 2019.[6]
In November 2019, Muecke was named South Australian of the Year for 2020.[12] In January 2020, he was named Australian of the Year for his work in preventing blindness.[9] [13] He had planned to speak at events around the country throughout the year, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant most of his presentations outside Adelaide were delivered online.[14]
On being appointed Australian of the Year, Muecke immediately advocated for a tax on sugary drinks in the fight against Type 2 diabetes,[15] [16] which is the leading cause of blindness among Australian adults.[10] He advocated for TV commercials for unhealthy products to be limited to certain hours, and asks supermarket chains to curb their "predatory sales and marketing tactics", without success.[14] Australia Post did remove junk food from their checkouts following a meeting with him.[14] In late November 2020, he gave a controversial speech to the National Press Club outlining what he described as the country's "flawed, biased and unscientific" Australian Dietary Guidelines.[17] He also brought his concerns to the Health Minister Greg Hunt.[18] He was credited by Hunt in the launching of a new ten-year National Diabetes Plan in November 2021.[19] Muecke is also a key contributor to Australian Community Media's "Silent Assassin" series on the causes and consequences of Australia's type 2 diabetes epidemic.[20] [21]
In 2016, Muecke had to stop conducting surgeries due to an inherited neurological condition (focal dystonia) impacting use of his right hand.[22] [23]
On 20 January 2022, the Premier of South Australia, Steven Marshall, announced that Muecke would be the state's new Lieutenant Governor, succeeding Brenda Wilson.[2] The role is appointed for a term at the "Governor's pleasure" and acts as vice-regal representative in the Governor's absence.[24]
Muecke is married to Mena, a former architect who is Sight for All's events director, and they have two sons.[7] [26] He is a keen amateur photographer and has held exhibitions and self-published a coffee table book, which helped fund a children's eye unit in Myanmar.[7]