He is the first totally blind person to be appointed to a full professorship in any subject at any university in Australia or New Zealand,[2] as well as the first to become a Dean of Law in these countries.
[4] At the time, treating this required placing the baby in a humidicrib with uncontrolled oxygen; while this prevented McCallum from dying, it meant that he permanently lost his sight.
[4] The only member of his family to finish Year 12, McCallum achieved outstanding results, and was accepted to study law at Monash University.
[9] He became increasingly well known for his work on labour law, and has published 10 books on the topic, as well as numerous chapters, journal articles and papers.
McCallum is the first totally blind person to be appointed by any university in Australasia to a full professorship in any field or as Dean of Law.
[3] McCallum made headlines in 2005 by his criticism of John Howard's government's WorkChoices legislation, a policy he claimed was fundamentally flawed.
[3] On 20 December 2011, McCallum was announced, along with Reserve Bank Board Member John Edwards and former Federal Court Judge Michael Moore, to conduct an official review of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).
[16] In 2017, McCallum appeared alongside Matthew Formston on the Season 2 premiere episode of You Can't Ask That entitled "Blind People".
[18] The book details his life's story and how advancements in technology helped him reach heights previously impossible for blind people.
[6] In 2019 a memoir dealing with his life and work was published by Allen & Unwin titled, Born at the right time.