A shared statement of values and intent following International Day of People with Disability 2025
In 2025, Australia is deciding what kind of community it wants to be. Disability pride and participation have grown. Yet rising ableist hate speech and disinformation now threaten the progress we’ve made together.
Like other 21st century challenges, disability hate is a global problem that demands local action. It is corrosive – wearing down guardrails, fraying community bonds, eroding social licence for equality. The harm is cumulative and the consequences are real: segregation, violence, economic disempowerment, loss of services, and family breakdown.
But we can act on evidence, learning from election integrity models and communities who have faced coordinated disinformation. We can create conditions that ensure lies are not believed and not shared.
Disabled people must lead this response, but cannot do it alone. We have the facts and lived experience. The whole community has a role: to resource us, amplify our voices, and share the burden of defence.
We refuse to accept hate as the new normal. On this International Day of People with Disability, we commit to halting hate and rebooting the 2020s as a decade not of division, but of solidarity.
Kindness is not weakness. Inclusion is not optional. To welcome is to defend.
CORE PRINCIPLES
- Dignity – People with disability are experts in a shared defence. We centre disability leadership in all decisions.
- Safety – We create environments where people with disability are protected from hate, exclusion, and harm.
- Truth – We counter disinformation with facts and lived experience.
- Belonging – We design for access from the start and intervene early when exclusion occurs.
- Diversity – We recognise and value the rich diversity within and across communities.
- Equity – We address systemic barriers to enable equal participation.
- Inclusion – We ensure full participation as fundamental design, not an add-on.
OUR COMMITMENTS
Individuals: Enact Solidarity
Call out – Challenge harmful behaviour early. Step into the “between space” to stop harm before it escalates. Share access labour to prevent exclusion.
Counter misinformation – Provide facts. Amplify safer voices and displace harmful ones.
Recognise escalation – Build awareness of how harm grows from microaggressions to misinformation to exclusion to violence. Spot when “non-consequences” enable harmful behaviour.
Believe lived experience – Validate what people with disability tell you. Bear witness. Speak out on intersecting oppressions.
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