Students say inclusivity will happen on their watch

“Being Indigenous burns your heart, disability freezes you cold”

Dr Scott Avery is a professor, researcher and policy adviser on Indigenous cultural approaches for the inclusion of people with disability. His publication ‘Culture is Inclusion’ has influenced national policy across Closing the Gap, Australia’s Disability Strategy, and the Disability Royal Commission.

He describes it as “a storytelling exercise to get on the agenda”.

This NAIDOC Week (5 – 12 July), Scott is challenging Australians to rethink disability, inclusion and the role culture plays in shaping both.

“I’m an Aboriginal person, my ancestral homeland is the Worimi country,” said Scott. “I’m on Dharawal country in the southern part of Sydney, I’ve lived my whole life here. I’m also a deaf person. So the country I really connect with is what I call ‘deaf country,’ where I take my cochlear implants off and it’s this place of silence. That’s my natural world.

I’m not a person with hearing loss – that’s how the medical system treats me.

I’m gifted by silence – that’s my natural world.”

That perspective has shaped Scott’s life’s work, challenging conventional ideas about disability, and how to view NAIDOC week.

“I think it’s (NAIDOC week) a chance to step out of the day-to-day kind of advocacy that we do and celebrate our communities in our own special way,” Scott said. “I go to my local community organisation down the road and just really enjoy Aboriginal culture for a week. We’re surrounded by culture every day. But that week, in particular, we can just take a break from it all and sit back and enjoy our Aboriginal culture for what it is.”

Changing the narrative on disability

With a background in health and a strong connection to the First Nations disability community, Scott noticed early on that people with disability were often missing from conversations that directly affected them.

“I was doing a lot of health work… and at the time, I was just going, ‘where’s the voice and story of people with disability here?’”

What he saw was a system focused on deficit.

“Disability was still very much framed as a deficit… and that’s not how our mob and our ancestors speak to it,” he said. “There is a different worldview that helps us feel like we belong within our communities and society. We’re not saying we need to throw out the medical model… but there is another way of understanding disability that is grounded in belonging.”

Although his work has influenced national discussions, he says progress is not guaranteed, particularly when people with disability are excluded from implementation.

“We tell our stories, and then it goes into some implementation process in government, and that’s when we get locked out again… when we’re not in the room.”

Scott’s approach is not based on activism. However, it is founded on data.

“I’m very mindful there’s a place for activism, but I engage with the evidence, I engage with the data. There’s never going to be a street march around more data, but that’s what drives systemic change, and what makes people better decision-makers.

This is what it means for systemic reform. It is a little bit frustrating, I find, and very difficult. People will say we’re going to change ableism, we’re going to quit ableism, and they get all excited about it. But my analogy is a bit like quit smoking, you know. They decide to quit, then they go to a nightclub and say, this is really hard, and they go backwards.”

The challenge of talking about ableism

Scott once said, “being Indigenous burns your heart, disability freezes you cold.”

This is how he feels about the conversations unfolding in society, and where they stall.

“How we speak about people with disability…I just feel like we’re heading backwards, and backwards in a hurry…If I talk about structural racism, it draws a crowd,” he said. “But if I talk about ableism, it’s still a very awkward discussion. Their body language changes, it’s like, ‘oh, I don’t want to talk about that.’”

While conversations about racism have become more visible, Scott says ableism remains harder for many people to confront.

He draws on past experience to explain the shift needed. When working on the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan, he remembers travelling around with Department of Health officials, who struggled to name racism.

“They just couldn’t say it. It wasn’t until we framed it as the quality of the health system that suddenly it clicked.”

Scott believes a similar breakthrough is needed in how we understand ableism – and its real impact on people’s lives.

Hope in the next generation

Despite the challenges, Scott sees reason for optimism, particularly in education. Today, he teaches at the University of Technology Sydney.

“I think where we are in disability discussions is about 10 to 15 years behind where Indigenous knowledge was,” he said. “But if we can teach this early, we’re getting students grounded in this idea of inclusion.”

Scott said that younger generations are taking the driver’s seat in leading the push for a more inclusive society.

“I’ve been teaching this for about five years, and even in that short space of time, I can see the shift. The students are going, ‘this is going to happen on our watch, we’re going to be inclusive.’”

There are plenty of people providing a voice whom Scott says we need to look up to. He mentioned Professor Pat Dudgeon, a Bardi woman from the Kimberley, a researcher in the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

“I think that’s what we have to create in the disability community, get past this assumption, you know, that we can’t speak for ourselves.”

What inclusion has always looked like

For Scott, Indigenous knowledge offers a powerful example of what true inclusion looks like – something that NAIDOC Week can help bring to the forefront.

“There is an Indigenous worldview of disability inclusion…everyone has its place and purpose.”

He shared the story of the “one legged Mungo man” – ancient footprints discovered at Lake Mungo.

“There’s this single right footprint, right footprint, and the Western archaeologists were completely baffled. But our elders said straight away, ‘That’s a one legged man on a hunt’.”

For Scott this was emblematic – that people have responsibilities in society and can contribute to community. For Scott, this idea is central to moving forward.

“Our way back is almost reanimating the Indigenous worldview of inclusion. We’ve got to give back the soul of people with disability and reanimate their life within community.”

Scott’s reflections suggest that NAIDOC week isn’t just about the celebration of culture, it’s about understanding our culture.

It’s a reminder that culture, community and inclusion are always connected. And that learning from Indigenous perspectives can help build a future where everyone has their place and purpose.

Fifty Years of Deadly

The theme for NAIDOC Week this year is Fifty Years of Deadly:

“Fifty Years of Deadly is a marker, not just of time passed, but of the momentum still building. It’s proof of what our people build when culture leads and community comes first. NAIDOC belongs to mob. It always has.

We honour what came before by continuing the work.

This is our story. This is our celebration. This is our future.

Still deadly. Always.”

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