Develop, support, promote disability leaders
Menu
Menu
The Disability Leadership Oration 2024 has been recorded by the ABC Big Ideas program on Radio National and will be broadcast on 3 December 2024 as part of the ABC’s IDay programming. It will then be available via their podcast library.
Orator
Dr Scott Avery
Dr Scott Avery is a professor of Indigenous disability health and wellbeing in the School of Public Health, University of Technology Sydney. He is an Aboriginal man descendant from the Worimi people and is profoundly deaf.
Dr Scott (as he prefers to be known) is a recognised educator, researcher and policy adviser on Indigenous cultural approaches for the inclusion of people with disability. He has extensive experience in conducting community-based research and policy in Indigenous and disability organisations, and is the ‘Professor in Residence’ at the First Peoples Disability Network, an Indigenous Disabled Peoples Organisation. His publication ‘Culture is Inclusion: A narrative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability’ (2018) has influenced national policy across Closing the Gap, Australia’s Disability Strategy, and the Disability Royal Commission. He has been appointed as an expert advisor to numerous Government bodies and is a director on the board of disability service provider Achieve Australia Ltd. He was appointed Ambassador for the International Day of People with Disability in 2023.
MC
Yenn Purkis
Yenn Purkis is an autistic, ADHD, Asexual and non-binary advocate and author. They also have a diagnosis of schizophrenia and anxiety. Yenn is the author of eighteen published books and a contributor to many more. Yenn is an accomplished presenter and has given two talks for TEDx Canberra. Yenn has given presentations all over the world. They have a number of awards for their work and they have been an advocate for almost 20 years. Yenn lives in Canberra with their little tortoiseshell kitty, Sunflower.
DLI Host
Christina Ryan
In 2016 Christina Ryan took one of the most radical steps in her long career of activism and change making: she put the two words disability and leadership into the same sentence. Her next step was founding the Disability Leadership Institute.
Auslan interpreters
Andrea Llorens – Anytime Auslan
Live captions
Deane Fallows – Rojaley Reporting
Livestream and onsite photography
Patorama Studios
– Patrick Lindley
– Jeffrey Kirkpatrick
– Clare Lindley
Listen to the Oration on the ABC’s Big Ideas program on Radio National
Read the full printed version of all speeches and the Oration
Our major sponsors for this event
The Achieve Foundation
Our accessibility sponsors
The National Australia Bank
Our broadcast partners
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The ABC is supported by IDPWD, the Commonwealth Government, for their IDay programming.
Christina Ryan
Debbie McKenna
Wendy Hill
Karlie Robinson
DLI disability support crew: Graeme Bayles, Adam McKenna.
Claire Slattery
Karin Zsivanovits
Mark Hennessy (sound engineer)
Dimitria Panagiotaros
Karen Stingemore
also
Daniel Hirst and team
Jodie Haigh
Thank you to Ralph and the TreeEighty3 crew for the catering
Thank you to Nip and Gigi’s Flowers for the floral arrangements
Thank you to the National Archives of Australia