The Campaign for Disability Rights

Across Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century, charities established schools and large homes, the later often run like hospitals. There were too many to name but examples include Yooralla kindergarten for “physically weak and defective children” (The Herald, Tuesday November 12th 1918), which started in Drummond Street in Carlton, Melbourne and educated children who were outpatients at the nearby Children’s Hospital. In Perth, Claremont Mental Hospital (1904 to 1986) had up to 1000 people with dementia and intellectual disability, as well as people with severe psychiatric conditions.

John Roarty became one of the first rebels challenging institutionalisation. He lived at Weemla for 58 years and helped set up a residents committee at Weemala to refuse what he saw as petty interventions in their lives. Patients were not allowed to leave the institution except for “approved annual leave” and were not allowed to use motorized wheelchairs. John took his complaints to the media. This action helped spark a period of reform within institutions, as well as de-institutionalisation. John went on to be an adviser to the NSW government and received an Order of Australia for his contributions to the community.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the early campaigners saw their goals progressed with the right to self-determination and the right to study, work and marry now a possibility.

The 2011 - 2013 disability rights campaign, in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, used the slogan “Every Australian Counts” with an organisation of the same name encouraging grassroots involvement across Australia. Social media, DisabiliTeas, street rallies and story sharing were used to show support for the NDIS. Many stories of hardship and inequality caused by lack of resources were exposed.