Hireup speaks to some of Australia’s top disability advocates about Dylan Alcott’s time as Australian of the Year as he prepares to hand over the mantle.
Dylan Alcott was already a high achiever long before he was named Australian of the Year in 2022. An elite athlete in two sports, a Paralmpic gold medalist, the winner of 10 Grand Slam titles including the Golden Slam in 2021. He’s also a best selling author and established Australia’s first accessible music festival. On top of that, he’s an outspoken advocate - although he stresses he “[doesn’t] speak for everybody, I just speak for myself and my own experience”.
Still, when he speaks, people listen - which is why his appointment as Australian of the Year in 2022 was so important for many in the disability community.
“Dylan was talking to such a broad cross-section of people across the country that few of us could ever hope to reach in our careers” says Emma Bennison, Chair of the Attitude Foundation and former CEO of Blind Citizens Australia. “He had this remarkable opportunity and this remarkable platform to amplify the voices of people with disability and to send the messages that many of us have been sending for decades about disability.”
Bennison’s words were echoed by Andrew Fairbairn, president of Physical Disability Australia (PDA), who says that one of Alcott’s biggest achievements in the role was to change perceptions about disability, and not just for non-disabled people.
“It's been great to have someone who is of such high calibre, very obviously having a disability [in that role]. I hope the legacy of that continues and that people just don't forget that. We need that representation because if we don't see ourselves in that [type of] mainstream position, whether it's the CEO of a company, whether it's an employer, whether it's an employee, whether it's a student, whether it's on as a journalist, whether it's on TV, as an actor, whether it's a professional musician. If we do not see ourselves in those places, we have got nothing to work towards”.
Nicole Lee, president of People with Disability Australia (PWDA), says “Dylan’s done a really good job of raising the profile of a physically disabled person while also trying to include other people with invisible disabilities along the way.”
All three advocates point out that Alcott is the second person with disability to be Australian of the Year. His immediate predecessor, Grace Tame, is autistic.
“We hear very little about that,” says Bennison. “And yet it is certainly the case and she's quite open in identifying as such. So, I think it's interesting that we've got Dylan as the Disabled Australian of the Year. We're much more comfortable putting people into those discrete boxes. But I'd love for someone to go back and do some research about how many of our Australians of the year have actually been people with disability”.
Alcott’s tenure was marked by a national discussion about employment. It’s a subject Alcott is passionate about. He launched The Field, a Disability Employment Service, during his time as Australian of the Year, and had already co-founded Get Skilled Access, which helps employers build more inclusive workplaces.
Alcott spoke at the Disability Royal Commission about the problems job seekers with disability can face, relaying a time he went for a job interview when he was younger.
“Turned up [and] it was upstairs. They came downstairs and they said you didn't say you were in a wheelchair. I said I must have forgotten it. And then there was an office downstairs. I said can you come downstairs and do the…interview. And they said, no, we're just going to cancel the job interview now, right. That happens every day still to so many people with disability, and that sucks”.
Alcott also told the commission that finding work is often only half the battle. Bennison agrees.
“His employment commentary was very clear that this was not just about getting and keeping a job, but it was about having a career”, she says.
Fairbairn says this is a common theme in Physical Disability Australia’s work to reframe the employment landscape.
“We have board members who've got degrees and have master's degrees and have doctorates,” says Fairbairn, “and they are very highly educated, but they're still locked out of those positions because the employer can't see past the disability. And that's one thing that Dylan has done an incredibly good job of, bringing that to light.”
Alcott called on all Australians to challenge such unconscious bias around disability in his acceptance speech a year ago. He also famously said “I love my disability. It is the best thing that ever happened to me.” But Alcott’s been very open about his struggle to find that pride, speaking about how he used to “hate myself, [I] hated my disability”.
Bennison says Alcott’s honesty around this struggle is just as important as his achievements.
“To see a person with disability not only become Australian of the Year but be prepared to actually own the fact that he hadn't always been confident and he hadn't always been proud of who he was, of his disabled identity” says Bennison. “But [to hear him] talking about how important it is for people to practise being proud and to not feel ashamed of who they are [has] been a really significant source of pride for our community”.
Bennison, Fairbairn and Lee expressed hope that Australia will recognise and celebrate Alcott as being just one person in a widely diverse community. And they note that Alcott - a sports superstar - isn’t typical of most Australians, let alone ones with disability.
Lee says, “it’s brilliant that we all get to see Dylan and all of the achievements he’s made in sport but we also need to remember some of the abject poverty that a lot of disabled people live in”.
“One thing, moving forward that would be really brilliant for him to focus on would be supporting people below the poverty line to engage in sport.”
The PWDA chief says Australia needs to do more to make it easier for people with disability to engage in sports, including competing at elite levels as Alcott has.
It’s part of a larger conversation being had across the country around disability rights, fuelled significantly by Alcott’s time as Australian of the Year. And this is one of the reasons why Lee says it’s crucial people with disability be awarded such roles.
“Because we belong in all areas of society and community, and that includes as Australian of the Year, as well as in politics, in all aspects of our community” says Lee. “It’s really heartening to see that we had Grace Tame, as a victim-survivor and a woman with disability, and then we’ve got Dylan Alcott, a Paralympian and a man with a disability - one after the other - so it’s been a pretty significant two years.”
All three advocates say they hope Alcott’s message around disability rights will continue to be heard long after he hands over the mantle on Wednesday night.
Alcott himself shows no signs that he’ll stop speaking out.
“I don't want to downplay being Australian of the Year because it's obviously a big honour, but the day before and the day after I won Australian of the Year, I'm the same Dylan. I didn't really need to win an award to be able to do what my purpose is, which is to change perceptions so all people with disability can live the lives they deserve to live”.