Disability advocate Kirsty Barnett reflects on why it’s time for Australia to adopt a national Human Rights Act for International Day of People with Disability.
Our lives are better when we treat each other with fairness, dignity and respect. That’s the kind of Australia most of us want to live in: one where everyone can see a doctor when they need to, get an education that sets them up to thrive, and move through the world without unnecessary barriers. But too often, our systems fall short. Accessibility is treated as an afterthought, and disabled people are left to navigate processes and structures that were clearly not designed with us in mind. A Human Rights Act would help change that by giving everyone a fairer footing.
Our identities don’t exist in separate boxes. They intersect in ways that shape how we experience discrimination. Queer disabled people know what it’s like to face judgement, dismissal and hostility from multiple directions at once. I’ve experienced queerphobia and ableism throughout my life; through subtle comments, in assumptions about what I can do, in being spoken over or minimised, and in being made to feel like parts of who I am are “too much” for certain spaces. Disabled people of colour experience racism and ableism simultaneously, and for many the discrimination is most visible in healthcare: being ignored, doubted, or stereotyped when trying to access the very services meant to support their disabilities.
None of us live single-issue lives, yet the systems we rely on often treat us as if we should fit neatly into one category.
When our needs overlap, we’re seen as “too complex,” as though human complexity is somehow unreasonable. And these overlapping pressures aren’t abstract – they accumulate and shape every interaction we have with the world. I’ve seen this up close in my own life. As a disabled student, I’ve had to fight for basic accommodations – not to get ahead, but just to stay on equal footing. Instead of supports being offered proactively, they were treated like optional extras I had to justify over and over again. Sometimes emails went ignored; sometimes decisions contradicted each other depending on who was working that day; sometimes accessibility was treated like a favour instead of a right.
My advocacy work showed me just how widespread these struggles are. As the Disability Officer at my residential hall, I saw how many of my peers were battling through the same barriers in silence. Things that should have been simple became exhausting back-and-forth negotiations that non-disabled students never had to deal with. I have fought for myself and others to access accessible housing that didn’t cost near $200 extra per week compared to the standard options offered to our able-bodied peers. I remember supporting friends who had been told outright that the supports they needed were “too difficult” for the institution to provide. And in the university-wide Disabilities Student Association, I saw just how broad these challenges were.
Disabled students of colour, international students, migrants, queerstudents, women and gender diverse people all faced overlapping barriers – being doubted, spoken over, or treated with suspicion when asking for accommodations they were fully entitled to.
Some were questioned more harshly, some were repeatedly made to “prove” their disability, and others had their needs dismissed because of stereotypes tied to their identities. These experiences show that discrimination is not evenly distributed; it compounds. Those who already carry the weight of multiple marginalisations are often given the least support. These are not isolated incidents. They are patterns repeated across faculties, services, and decisions. They reflected systemic gaps that a Human Rights Act could help prevent by requiring institutions to take people’s rights and dignity seriously from the start.
That’s why a Human Rights Act matters. It wouldn’t magically erase discrimination, but it would set a clear expectation: public bodies must respect people’s rights from the start. It would give regular people something to point to when systems fail them. It would make officials stop and ask, “How will this decision affect someone’s dignity, safety or ability to participate?” before they act. Most importantly, it would help shift the culture. Instead of disabled people and other marginalised groups constantly proving why we deserve fair treatment, fairness would be the default. Our rights wouldn’t depend on who’s rostered on that day, who reads our form, or whether someone thinks our needs are “too complicated.”
We all deserve to live with dignity, freedom and respect. A Human Rights Act is one step, an important step, towards building an Australia where that vision is reality for everyone, no matter who they are or what identities they hold.
