A non-blind person leading Vision Australia is “nothing unusual”, its chair has said, as the organisation faces criticism for seeking a new chief executive through internal expressions of interest only.
Bill Jolley’s comments come in the wake of a petition launched by Vision Australia’s founding chair, the former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes, urging the organisation to appoint its first blind chief executive.
The petition followed an open letter from Innes and 33 other representatives of the blind and vision-impaired community to Vision Australia’s board.
At the time of writing, the petition had more than 700 signatures.
Speaking to Guardian Australia, Jolley said he was “a bit surprised at the intensity of the reaction”.
“It does come from a pretty deep-seated disability community philosophy of ‘nothing about us without us’,” he said.
“However, if we were to look at other organisations in Australia, none of them has a CEO who is blind. Most of them don’t have chairs of their boards who are blind. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t. It’s to say that there is nothing unusual in what’s been happening at Vision Australia.”
Vision Australia had for some years been cultivating its 10-person leadership team, a fifth of whom are blind or vision impaired, so that “from among the leadership team we would have a reasonable chance of succession – of being able to make an internal appointment”, Jolley said.
“We anticipate applications both from leaders in our organisation who are sighted and leaders in our organisation who are blind.”
The chief executive position has been vacant after the resignation of Ron Hooton in early August after more than 11 years in the job.
Last week, Innes expressed concern Vision Australia was attempting to suppress criticism of its appointment process by taking an episode of the Blind Citizens Australia podcast New Horizons – in which Innes was interviewed about the petition and open letter – off Vision Australia’s radio network.
Jolley confirmed the board had approved a management decision not to air the episode as it included “a shock-jock style editorial” and Vision Australia wasn’t given a right of reply.
He said the organisation “didn’t feel it was appropriate for such a slanted program to be aired” using Vision Australia’s own resources. Jolley said the episode was “implicitly harmful” to Vision Australia’s reputation.
New Horizons is editorially independent from Blind Citizens Australia. Host Vaughn Bennison told Guardian Australia his editorial comments in the episode were specifically about the blind community’s belief in itself.
“This community needs to stand with itself and for itself,” Bennison said in the podcast after reading the open letter to listeners.
“It has demonstrated over many, many years that it is powerful and that it has what it takes to lead itself and to lead the organisations that provide services and represent it. Vision Australia, you’re on notice.”
Bennison told Guardian Australia the debate on the recruitment process “speaks for itself”.
“My big concern, regardless of what Vision Australia thought of the program, is that a large organisation like Vision Australia having editorial control over a community broadcasting service and effectively stifling comment by blind and vision-impaired community members is, in my view, just not appropriate,” he said.
Bennison said he reached out to Vision Australia some weeks ago, prior to the petition, to invite them on to New Horizons to speak about the chief executive appointment process, but received no response.
A spokesperson for Vision Australia said it could not confirm it had received the request.
In the wake of the petition’s launch, Innes submitted a nomination to stand again for Vision Australia’s board of directors.
In a public statement, Innes said: “This decision reflects my belief that the organisation has lost its way and needs significant cultural revitalisation. In my nomination, I made it clear that Vision Australia’s leadership must better reflect the people it serves, and I will continue pushing for the appointment of our first blind CEO.”
Jolley said Innes was “a committed and tenacious advocate for people with disabilities” and “if he was to come on to the board, I’m sure in very short order he’d have a very different understanding” of the priorities and commitment of Vision Australia, compared to what had been conveyed in public.
